Jouaneaux laughed.
“My house! I could walk straight to it, little Sister, and lay my hand on the chimney. That chimney stump, it standeth near the river, the central one in a row of five. Many other rows of five there be in the field, but none, to my eye, exactly like this.”
Massawippa rose suddenly and dived like a swallow up the stairway. So much keener was her ear than Jouaneaux’s that she was out of sight before he realized the probability of an interruption.
A hand was on the chapel latch, and he turned himself on the step as Sister Judith Brésoles entered, her night taper in her hand. When she discovered him, instead of screaming, she stood and fixed a stern gaze on him, her mouth compressed and her brows holding an upright wrinkle betwixt them. Her servitor stood up in his most pious and depressed attitude.
“Jouaneaux, what are you doing here?”
“Honored Superior, I have been sitting half an hour or so meditating before the sacred images.”
“Where is the novice Massawippa?”
“That is what troubles my conscience, honored Superior.” Beneath his childlike distress Jouaneaux was silently blessing St. Joseph that it was not Sister Macé with her tendency to resort to the rood-loft. “Here is the case I stand in: the little Sister you call Massawippa, she came begging me for a breath of air by the river before I fastened the bolts to-night.”
“You turned that child upon the street!” exclaimed Sister Brésoles. “I cannot find her in any cell or anywhere about the Hôtel-Dieu. You have exceeded your authority, Jouaneaux. It is a frightful thing you have done!”