“I have taken possession. The keys of the house of course I do not want. They shall in all courtesy be left with the resident châtelaine, your sister. Monsieur, where is your sister?”
Dollard glanced over his shoulder at the embroidery frame.
“She has been here or is coming. I have hardly prepared you for poor Renée. She lives in delusions of her own, and pays little regard to the courtesies of the outside world. My excellent Jacques waits on her as on a child.”
“Doubtless I thought too little about her,” Claire said, visibly shrinking. “She may object to me.”
“She will not even see you unless I put you before her eyes.”
“What ails your sister, monsieur? Is she a religious devotee?”
“Not strictly that. She is a nurser of delusions. I cannot remember when she was otherwise, though we have lived little together, for poor Renée is but my half-sister. Her father was a De Granville. You will not feel afraid of her when you have seen her; she is not unkind. She has her own chambers at the rock side of the house and lives there weeks together. I see her embroidery frame is set out, and that means we may expect her presence.”
While he was speaking, Mademoiselle de Granville had opened a door at the end of the room.
Claire, with well-opened eyes, pressed backward against her husband, so moldered-looking a creature was this lady gliding on silent feet—not unlike some specter of the Des Ormeaux who had followed their last chevalier under the New World’s glaring skies. She wore a brocaded gown, the remnant of a court costume of some former reign, and her face was covered with a black silk mask. Though masks were then in common use, the eyes which looked through this one were like the eyes of a sleep-walker. She sat down by the embroidery frame as if alone in the room, but instead of a web of needlework she began to fasten in the frame one end of a priest’s stole much in need of mending.