“You have not told me the route your expedition goes,” whispered Claire.
“We go in that direction—up the Ottawa River.” Dollard swept out his arm indicating the west.
“There is one thing. Do not place me in the governor’s charge. How can I be a guest, when I would lie night and day before some shrine? Are there no convents in Montreal? A convent is my allotted shelter.”
“There are only the nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu,” he murmured back. “They, also, would receive you into kind protection; but, my Claire, they are poor. Montreal is not Quebec. Our nuns lived at first in one room. Now they have the hospital; but it is a wooden building, exposed by its situation.”
“Let me go to the nuns,” she insisted. “And there is one other thing. Do not tell them who I am. Say nothing about me, that I may have no inquiries to answer concerning our marriage and his lordship the bishop.”
“Our nuns of St. Joseph and the Sulpitians of Montreal bear not too much love for the bishop,” said Dollard. “But every wish you have is my wish. I will say nothing to the nuns, and you may tell them only what you will.”
A strong pallor toning up to yellow had been growing from the east to the detriment of the moon. Now a pencil line of pink lay across the horizon, and the general dewiness of objects became apparent. The mountain turned from shadow into perpendicular earth and half-budded trees. Some people were stirring in Montreal, and a dog ran towards the river barking as the boat touched the wharf.