The priest said good-night, and went to a 275 knoll not far from the door. The maid had settled back against the logs of the hut, and was gazing at the trees. Menard sat in silence for a few moments.
“Mademoiselle,” he said at length, “I know that it will be hard for you to rest until we have heard; but––” he hesitated, but she did not help him, and he had to go on,––“I wish you would try.”
“It would be of no use, M’sieu.”
“I know,––I know. But we have much to keep in mind. It has been very hard. Any one of us is likely to break. And you have not been so used to this life as the Father and I.”
“I know it,” she said, still looking at the elm branches that bent almost to the ground before them, “but when I lie down, and close my eyes, and let my mind go, it seems as if I could not stand it. It is not bad now; I can be very cool now. You see, M’sieu?” She turned toward him with the trace of a smile. “But when I let go––perhaps you do not know how it is; the thoughts that come, and the dreams,––when I am awake and yet not awake,––and the feeling that it is not worth while, this struggle, even to what it may bring if we succeed. It makes the night a torture, and the dread of 276 another day is even worse. It is better to stay awake; it is better even to break. Anything is better.”
Menard looked down between his knees at the ground. He did not understand what it was that lay behind her words. He started to speak, then stopped. After a little he found himself saying words that came to his lips with no effort; in fact, he did not seem able to check them.
“It is not right that I should be here near you. I gave up that right to-night. I gave it up yesterday. I have been proud, during these years of fighting, that I was a soldier. I had thought, too, that I was a man. It was hardly a week ago that I rebuked that poor boy for what I have since done myself. I promised Major Provost that I would take you safely to Frontenac. That I have failed is only a little thing. I have said to you––no, you must not stop me. We have gone already beyond that point. We understand now. I have tried to be to you more than––than I had a right to be while you were in my care. Danton did not know; Father Claude does not know. You know, because I have told you. I have shown you in a hundred ways.” 277
“No,” she said, in a choking voice. “It is my fault. I allowed you.”
He shook his head.
“That is nothing. It is not what you have done. It is not even what you think. It is what I shall think and know all my life,––that I have done the wrong thing. There are some of us, Mademoiselle, who have no home, no ties of family, no love, except for the work in which we are slowly building up a good name and a firm place. That is what I was. Do you know what it is that makes up the life of such a man? It is the little things, the acts of every day and every week; and they must be honest and loyal, or he will fail. I might have stayed in Paris, I might even have found a place in Quebec where I could wear a bright uniform, and be close in the Governor’s favour. I chose the other course. I have given a dozen years to the harder work, only to fall within the week from all that I had hoped,––had thought myself to be. And now, as I speak to you, I know that I have lost; that if you should smile at me, should put your hand in mine, everything that I have been working for would be nothing to me. You would be the only thing in the world.”