“When I have seen Mademoiselle le Ber,” La Salle replied to the blanket of Tegahkouita, “I shall understand from herself what her wishes are in this matter.”
“Sieur de la Salle cannot see her,” spoke Tegahkouita. “She hath no word but this, and she will not see Sieur de la Salle again.”
“I say he shall see her!” exclaimed the Montreal merchant, with asperity created by so many influences working upon his daughter. “He may look upon her this minute!”
Jeanne le Ber’s presence in Fort Frontenac scarcely surprised Barbe, so great was her amazement at the attitude of her uncle La Salle. That he should be suing to Le Ber’s daughter seemed as impossible as any rejection of his suit. She felt toward the saint she had pinched at convent that jealous resentment peculiar to women who desire to have the men of their families married, yet are never satisfied with the choice those men make. Even Barbe, however, considered it a sacrilegious act when Le Ber shook his daughter’s door and demanded admittance.
Jeanne’s complete silence, like a challenge, drew out his imperative force. He broke through every fastening and threw the door wide open.
The small, bare room, scarcely wider than its entrance, afforded no hiding-places. There was little to catch the eye, from rude berth to hooks in the ruder wall, from which the commandant’s clothing had so lately been removed.
Jeanne, the focus of this small cell, had flown to its extremity. As the door burst from its fastenings, everybody in the outer room could see her standing against the wall with noble instinct, facing the breakers of her privacy, but without looking at them. Her eyes rested on her beads, which she told with rapid lips and fingers. A dormer window spread its background of light around her head.
The recoil of inaction which followed Le Ber’s violence was not felt by Tegahkouita. With the swift silence of an Indian and the intuition of a devotee, she at once put herself in the sleeping cell, and kneeled holding up a crucifix before Jeanne. As this symbol of religion was lifted, Jeanne fell upon her knees.
Le Ber had not intended to enter, but indignation drove him on after Tegahkouita. He stood aside and did not approach his child,—a jealous, remorseful, anxious, irritated man.
La Salle could see Jeanne, though with giddy and indistinct vision. Her wool gown lay around her in carven folds, as she knelt like a victim ready for the headsman’s axe.