"Know?" cried Madeleine. "What should I know?"
He looked at her savagely, feeling that it was in him to make her suffer.
"That your lover is hanged at my command."
He closed the door quickly and fastened it, half hoping, half dreading, to hear the scream of anguish which he believed must follow. But there came to him as he waited a peal of joyous laughter, and the happy words:
"Geoffrey, Geoffrey! would that you could hear that! Dead! Why, my love, you are full of life. Were you to die, which God indeed forbids, your dear spirit would fly at once to me. Dead! Have I not seen you in my dreams? Do not I see you now walking within sight of the New England fields? Oh, Geoffrey! Near—how near! Who is that great man riding beside you, a panther skin across his shoulder? How noisily he talks ... and now leans over, and pats you on the arm. Ah, gone—gone! And he would have me think that you are hanged!"
CHAPTER XXVIII.
BODY AND MIND.
Roussilac strode towards the river, and in that hour found it in his heart to envy the meanest settler in the land. Like many a man who has risen from the ranks, he found himself destitute of friends. He had cut himself off from his own relations, lest they should hinder his ascent, and none had come to take their place; the captains of noble birth, his official equals, having refused to receive into friendship the son of a Normandy farmer. The home government was but using what military talents he possessed to their advantage; and when his services had been rendered, he would be cast aside by the proud priest who ruled the destinies of France, and another chosen in his stead.
"Courage!" he muttered. "'Tis but imagination which makes a weakling of me. I will to D'Archand, and inquire of him whether or no my name be yet in favour. Then to stand up like a man, and sweep away my enemies, let them be priests, relations, or demons."