“No, she will be all right! I will tell you in due time. It is needful for people to change sometimes, you know, dame! You comprehend that! You had to manage matters discreetly when you were the Charming Josephine. I dare say you had to change, too, sometimes! Every woman has an intrigue once, at least, in her lifetime, and wants a change. But this lady is not clever like the Charming Josephine, therefore we have to be clever for her!”
The dame laughed prudently yet knowingly at this, while Bigot continued, “Now you understand all! Go to her chamber, dame. Present our compliments with our regrets for disturbing her at this hour. Tell her that the Intendant and the Sieur Cadet desire to see her on important business.”
Dame Tremblay, with a broad smile all over her countenance at her master's jocular allusions to the Charming Josephine, left at once to carry her message to the chamber of Caroline.
She passed out, while the two gentlemen waited in the gallery, Bigot anxious but not doubtful of his influence to persuade the gentle girl to leave the Château, Cadet coolly resolved that she must go, whether she liked it or no. He would banish every woman in New France to the tuque of the St. Maurice had he the power, in order to rid himself and Bigot of the eternal mischief and trouble of them!
Neither Bigot nor Cadet spoke for some minutes after the departure of the dame. They listened to her footsteps as the sound of them died away in the distant rooms, where one door opened after another as she passed on to the secret chamber.
“She is now at the door of Caroline!” thought Bigot, as his imagination followed Dame Tremblay on her errand. “She is now speaking to her. I know Caroline will make no delay to admit us.” Cadet on his side was very quiet and careless of aught save to take the girl and get her safely away before daybreak.
A few moments of heavy silence and expectation passed over them. The howl of a distant watch-dog was heard, and all was again still. The low, monotonous ticking of the great clock at the head of the gallery made the silence still more oppressive. It seemed to be measuring off eternity, not time.
The hour, the circumstance, the brooding stillness, waited for a cry of murder to ring through the Château, waking its sleepers and bidding them come and see the fearful tragedy that lay in the secret chamber.
But no cry came. Fortunately for Bigot it did not! The discovery of Caroline de St. Castin under such circumstances would have closed his career in New France, and ruined him forever in the favor of the Court.
Dame Tremblay returned to her master and Cadet with the information “that the lady was not in her bedchamber, but had gone down, as was her wont, in the still hours of the night, to pray in her oratory in the secret chamber, where she wished never to be disturbed.