“Last summer this man Rogers came into the woods looking for some one to help get the people 260 to sell their land. He saw Rafe Gadbeau. He showed him the knife. He told him that whatever he laid upon him to do, that he must do. He made him lie to the people. He made him attack the young Whiting. He made him do many things that he would not do, for Rafe Gadbeau was not a bad man, only foolish sometimes. And Rafe Gadbeau was sore under the yoke of fear that this man had put upon him.
“At times he said to me, ‘Cynthe, I will kill this man one day, and that will be the end of all.’ But I said, ‘Non, non, mon Rafe, we will marry in the fall, and go away to far Beaupre where he will never see you again, and we will not know that he ever lived.’”
Cynthe had forgotten her audience. She was telling over to herself the tragedy of her little life and her great love. Genius could not have told her how better to tell it for the purpose for which her story was here needed. Dardis thanked his stars that he had taken the Bishop’s advice, to let her get through with it in her own way.
“But it was not time for us to marry yet,” she went on. “Then came the morning of the nineteenth August. I was sitting on the back steps of my aunt’s house by the Little Tupper, putting apples on a string to hang up in the hot sun to dry.” The Judge turned impatiently on his bench and shrugged his shoulders. The girl saw and her eyes blazed angrily at him. Who was he to 261 shrug his shoulders! Was it not important, this story of her love and her tragedy! Thereafter the Judge gave her the most rigid attention.
“Rafe Gadbeau came and sat down on the steps at my feet. I saw that he was troubled. ‘What is it, mon Rafe?’ I asked. He groaned and said one bad word. Then he told me that he had just had a message from Rogers to meet him at the head of the rail with three men and six horses. ‘What to do, mon Rafe?’ ‘I do not know,’ he said, ‘though I can guess. But I will not tell you, Cynthe.’
“‘You will not go, mon Rafe. Promise me you will not go. Hide away, and we will slip down to the Falls of St. Regis and be married––me, I do not care for the grand wedding in the church here––and then we will get away to Beaupre. Promise me.’
“‘Bien, Cynthe, I promise. I will not go to him.’
“But it was a man’s promise. I knew he would go in the end.
“I watched and followed. I did not know what I could do. But I followed, hoping that somewhere I could get Rafe before they had done what they intended and we could run away together with clean hands.
“When I saw that they had gone toward the railroad I turned aside and climbed up to the Bald Mountain. I knew they would all come back 262 there together. I waited until it was dark and they came. They would do nothing in the night. I waited for the morning. Then I would find Rafe and bring him away. I was desperate. I was a wild girl that night. If I could have found that Rogers and come near him I would have killed him myself. I hated him, for he had made me much suffering.