“I think he will come.”
The maid looked down at her clasped hands. Menard watched her,––the firelight was dancing on her face and hair,––and again the danger seemed to slip away, the chant and the fire to be a part of some mad dream that had carried him in a second from Quebec to this deep-shadowed spot, and had set this maid before him.
“You are wearing the daisy, Mademoiselle.”
She looked up, half-startled at the change in his voice. Then her eyes dropped again.
“See,” he continued, “so am I. Is it not strange that we should be here, you and I. And yet, when I first saw you, I thought––”
“You thought, M’sieu?”
Menard laughed gently. “I could not tell you, without telling you what I think now, and that would––be––” 204
He spoke half playfully, and waited; but she did not reply.
“I do not know what it is that has come to me. It is not like me. Or it may be that the soldier, all these years, has not been me. Would it not be strange if I were but now to find myself,––or if you were to find me, Mademoiselle? If it is true, if this is what I have waited so long to find, it would be many years before I could repay you for bringing it to me,––it would be a long lifetime.”
Again he waited, and still she was silent. Then he talked on, as madly now as on the night of their capture, when he had fought, shouting, musket and knife in hand, at the water’s edge. But this was another madness.