“Monsieur, monsieur, what do you mean?” she cried, with a faintness in her voice. But looking up suddenly, I saw that her surprise was a pretty piece of feigning, though her agitation was real enough.
“I mean that your brother, though succeeding to these estates under protection of English law, and owing allegiance to the English Crown, is giving aid to England’s enemies. He is supplying Louisbourg with grain and flax and cattle from these lands of Acadia, which are now English. The Governor has proofs beyond cavil. He has sent me to arrest your brother, mademoiselle, not to be happy in the hospitality of your brother’s sister.”
And now, to my amaze, the merriest and most persuasive smile spread a dazzle over my lady witch’s face.
“Those proofs of your good Governor’s, monsieur,” she cried, with pretty scorn, “I will show you what folly they are. You have all been deceived. You must come with me now, and give me fullest opportunity to clear my brother’s honour. And in any case it is my right, as well as my pleasure, to entertain the Governor’s representative when he visits the place of my father’s people.”
But I was stubborn. That deed in my pocket weighed tons. Yet my inclination must have shown in my eyes, plainly enough for one less keen than Mademoiselle Irene le Fevre to decipher it. A little air of confidence flitted over her face. Nevertheless, I shook my head.
“Most gracious lady,” I protested, “you honour me too much. It will delight me to learn that your brother has been maligned”—and in this, faith, I spoke true, forgetting the contingent peril to my pocket—“but were he never so innocent it would be my duty to take him to Halifax, for the Governor himself to weigh the evidence. The irony of life has sent me as your foe, not as your guest.”
“Then, monsieur, come as a foe who but observes the courtesies. Come with your hands free to arrest my brother at any moment on his own hearthstone (he is far away from it now, praise Mary!), or to arrest your hostess either, if your duty should demand that unkindness. Come as one who graciously accepts what he could, if he would, take as his right. Let us play that you come here as our friend, monsieur—and give me the hope of winning an advocate for my brother against the evil day that may bring him before the cold English judges at Halifax.”
Her strong, little eloquent hands were clasped in appeal—and who was I to deny her? But I looked into her eyes; and I saw in their childlike deeps, underneath the mocking and the feigning, a clear spirit, which I could not bear to delude. I understood now very plainly her mad game of the night before. She was unmasking a danger for her brother. I justified her in my heart; for my own part in the folly I felt a creeping shame. How lightly she must hold me. This thought, and a sense that I was about to hurt her, brought the hot flush to my face; and I looked away as I spoke.
“But, mademoiselle—forgive me that I bear such tidings—the estates of Monsieur Raoul le Fevre, Seigneur of Cheticamp, are confiscated to the Crown.”
Lifting my eyes at the last words, I saw that the girl had grown very white and was staring at me in a sort of terror. There was plainly no feigning here. This blow was unexpected, unprepared for, something beyond her bright young wit to deal with. I seemed to see in her heart a sudden, hopeless desolation, as if all her world had fallen to ruin about her and left her life naked to the storm of time. Not a word had she ready in such a crisis.