"Yes," returned Mrs. Eveleigh, with calm acquiescence. "It will be dreadful for the people that live in the little villages and in the open country."
This calmness, as if one were gazing from an impregnable fortress upon the tortures and deaths of others, silenced Elizabeth. She looked the speaker over slowly and turned away.
"Any more news?" asked Mrs. Eveleigh in a cheerful tone.
"I can tell you nothing more," returned Elizabeth.
This was literally true. It would not have been true if she had said that she had heard nothing else, for she had been sitting with her father for an hour, and had learned of a secret scheme,—a scheme so daring that the very idea of it made her eyes kindle and her breath come quickly,—a scheme that if it should fail would be hooted at as the dream of vain-glorious madmen, and if it should succeed, would be called a stroke of genius—magnificent. It interested her to know that among the most eager to carry out the scheme was Major Vaughn, the man whose valor she had asserted to Sir Temple Dacre a few months before. A small band of men had pledged themselves to put reality into this dream of grand achievement. "Its failure means," thought Elizabeth, "that America is to be French and Jesuit; its success that Englishmen, and liberty of mind and conscience, rule here." She prayed and hoped for success, and took an eager interest in all the details of the scheme that had reached her; but these were meagre enough, for, as yet, it was only outlined; the main thing was that it was resolved upon. The prisoners captured at Canso had been at last exchanged. They had been brought to Boston, and had given valuable information about the place of their captivity, the stronghold of France in America. Governor Shirley had declared that Louisburg was to be captured, and that Colonel Pepperell was the man to do it. Elizabeth, as she looked across at Mrs. Eveleigh, wondered what she would say to the project. But she wondered in silence, not only because silence had been enjoined, but because this was not a woman to trust with the making of great events. She had heard of an Indian war, and her chief thought had been that she would be safe.
The war had been talked about all the autumn. It was a terrible necessity, but this new direction that it was to take was something worth pondering over.
Elizabeth naturally, took large views of things, and, as her father's companion, she had not learned to restrict them. But, also, for the last months she had perceived dimly that there was a power within her which might never be called into action. And this power rose, sometimes, with vehemence against the monotony of her surroundings, in the midst of her wealth of comforts and of affection.
It was the last of November, only two days after this conversation, that Stephen Archdale was announced.
"He has come to tell me the decision," said Elizabeth to Mrs. Eveleigh; "he promised he would come immediately. It's good news."
"Then what makes you so pale? And you're actually trembling."