Dollard wheeled and flung his clinched hands above his head as men do on receiving gunshot wounds.
“O saints! I cannot tell her! I am a wretch, Jacques. She has been happy; I have not caused her a moment’s suffering. Let her sleep till morning. Tell her then merely that I have gone to my fortress; that I would not expose her to the dangers of the route by night. It will soon be over now. Sometime she can forgive this cruelty if a deed goes after it to make her proud. She has proud blood, my boy; she loves honor. Oh, what a raving madman I was to marry her, my beloved! I thought it could do her no harm—that it could not shake my purpose! O my Claire! O my poor New France! Torn this way, I deserve shame with death—no martyr’s crown—no touch of glory to lighten my darkness for ever and ever!”
“M’sieur,” whimpered Jacques, crouching and wiping nose and eyes with his palms, “don’t say that! My little master, my pretty, my dear boy! These women have the trick of tripping a man up when he sets his foot to any enterprise.”
“Hear me,” said Dollard, grasping him on each side of the collar. “She is the last of the Des Ormeaux to you. Serve her faithfully as you serve the queen of heaven. If she wants to go back to France, go with her. Before this I bequeathed you St. Bernard. Now I am leaving you a priceless charge. Your wife shall obey and follow her to the ends of the earth. To-day I altered my will in Montreal and gave her my last coin, gave her my seigniory, I gave her you! Do you refuse to obey my last commands? Do you disallow my rights in you?”
Jacques’s puckered face unflinchingly turned upward and met the stare of his master.
“M’sieur, I will follow my lady’s whims and do your commands to the hour of my death.”
Dollard, like a mastiff, shook him.
“Is there any treachery in you, Jacques Goffinet, free follower of the house of Des Ormeaux? If there is, out with it now, or my dead eyes will pry through you hereafter.”
“M’sieur,” answered Jacques, lifting his hand and making the sign of the cross, “I am true man to my core. I do love to pile good stuff together and call land mine, but thou knowest I love a bit of cloth from one of thy old garments better than all the seigniories in New France.”