“Thanks for tying the knot, Angélique,” said he at length. “It is a hard knot, mine, is it not, both to tie and to untie?”
She looked at him, not pretending to understand any meaning he might attach to his words. “Yes, it is a hard knot to tie, yours, Bigot, and you do not seem particularly to thank me for my service. Have you discovered the hidden place of your fair fugitive yet?” She said this just as he turned to depart. It was the feminine postscript to their interview.
Bigot's avoidance of any allusion to the death of Caroline was a terrible mark of suspicion; less in reality, however, than it seemed.
Bigot, although suspicious, could find no clue to the real perpetrators of the murder. He knew it had not been Angélique herself in person. He had never heard her speak of La Corriveau. Not the smallest ray of light penetrated the dark mystery.
“I do not believe she has left Beaumanoir, Bigot,” continued Angélique; “or if she has, you know her hiding-place. Will you swear on my book of hours that you know not where she is to be found?”
He looked fixedly at Angélique for a moment, trying to read her thoughts, but she had rehearsed her part too often and too well to look pale or confused. She felt her eyebrow twitch, but she pressed it with her fingers, believing Bigot did not observe it, but he did.
“I will swear and curse both, if you wish it, Angélique,” replied he. “Which shall it be?”
“Well, do both,—swear at me and curse the day that I banished Le Gardeur de Repentigny for your sake, François Bigot! If the lady be gone, where is your promise?”
Bigot burst into a wild laugh, as was his wont when hard-pressed. He had not, to be sure, made any definite promise to Angélique, but he had flattered her with hopes of marriage never intended to be realized.
“I keep my promises to ladies as if I had sworn by St. Dorothy,” replied he.