“Oh, yes. It’s all right, fair Angelique. But what is the word for me?”
“It is: that you come with me, at once, to the master. He will speak with you before he sleeps. Yes. And, Adrian, lad!”
“Well, Angelique?”
“This is the truth. Remember—when the heart is sore tried the tongue is often sharp. There is death—that is a sorrow—God sends it. There are sorrows God does not send, but the evil one. Death is but joy to them. What the master says, answer; and luck light upon your lips.”
The lad had never seen the old housekeeper so impressive nor so gentle. At the moment it seemed as if she almost liked him, though, despite the faithfulness with which she had obeyed her master’s wishes and served him, he had never before suspected it.
“Thank you, Angelique. I am troubled, too, and I will take care that I neither say nor resent anything harsh. More than that, I will go away. I have stayed too long already, though I had hoped I was making myself useful. Is he in his own study?”
“Yes, and the little maid is with him. No—there she comes, but she is not laughin’, no. Oh! the broken glass. Scat! Meroude. Why leap upon one to scare the breath out, that way? Pst! ’Tis here that tame creatures grow wild and wild ones tame. Scat! I say.”
Margot was coming through the rooms, holding Reynard by the collar she made him wear whenever he was in the neighborhood of the hen-house, and Tom limped listlessly along upon her other side. There was trouble and perplexity in the girl’s face, and Angelique made a great pretense of being angry with the cat, to hide that in her own.
But Margot noticed neither her nor Adrian, and sitting down upon the threshold dropped her chin in her hands and fixed her eyes upon the darkening lake.
“Why, mistress! The beast here at the cabin, and it nightfall! My poor fowls!”