Here I broke in upon him, springing to my feet.
"Stop!" said I, sternly.
He looked at me with a face of sorrowful inquiry, into which a tinge of anger rose slowly.
"Remember," I continued, "that whatever accusation or imputation you make now, I shall require you to prove beyond a peradventure,—or to make good with your sword against mine! My son is the victim of a vile conspiracy. He is—"
"Then he is loyal, you say, to France?" interrupted de Ramezay, eagerly.
"I say," said I, in a voice of steel, "that he has done nothing that his father, a soldier of France, should blush to tell,—nothing that an honest gentleman should not do." My voice softened a little as I noticed the change in his countenance. "And oh, Ramezay," I continued, "had any man an hour ago told me that you would condemn a son of mine unheard,—that you, on the mere word of a false priest or his wretched tools, would have believed that a son of Jean de Mer could be a traitor, I would have driven the words down his throat for a black lie, a slander on my friend!"
De Ramezay was silent for a moment, his eyes fixed upon the floor. Then he lifted his head.
"I was wrong. Forgive me, my friend!" said he, very simply. "I see clearly that I ought to have held the teller of those tales in suspicion, knowing of him what I do know. And now, since you give me your word the tales are false, they are false. Pardon me, I beg of you, Monsieur!" he added, turning to Marc and holding out his hand.
Marc bowed very low, but appeared not to see the hand.
"If you have heard, Monsieur de Ramezay," said he, "that, before it was made plain that France would seek to recover Acadie out of English hands, I, a mere boy, urged my fellow Acadians to accept the rule in good faith;—if you have heard that I then urged them not to be misled to their own undoing by an unscrupulous and merciless intriguer who disgraces his priestly office;—if you have heard that, since then, I have cursed bitterly the corruption at Quebec which is threatening New France with instant ruin,—you have heard but truly!"