“How can you laugh, Angélique? Don't you see what it means to me?”
“Don't you see what it means to us, Marguerite? You know how we have hoped and suffered. You have lived among us and shared everything we had to give, joy and sorrow alike. Do you owe nothing to us? You were defended by him who lies in his grave below when a jealous woman would have branded you as a spy. Do you owe nothing to the Marquis de Montcalm? Do you owe nothing to those others who stood between you and her malice?”
“Angélique, do you think you need remind me of these things?”
“Forgive me, chérie, if I am ungracious enough to urge the claim of benefits bestowed. This is no time for pretty speeches. I would urge anything to decide you.”
“It is not that. If I could go as I am, and simply risk capture, or even death, I would not hesitate.”
“You cannot go as you are! A woman could not even pass through the streets to-night; but no one will look twice at a uniform.”
“But I cannot. Think what it will mean to me if I am discovered; think what it will mean even if I succeed.”
“Marguerite, Marguerite, you must forget what you are! You must forget what you can do, and what you cannot do! Forget everything, save that these tidings must reach M. de Lévis to-night, and that you are the only one who can carry them. There! Begin to undress at once! Quick! Quick! Any further delay may render all useless.”
Might this not be the reparation for any share I had had in the failure of Sarennes to return to succour Louisbourg? If I accepted it and proved successful, would not I carry into my new vocation something more than the failure of a life that had sought but its own ends? If I failed, would not I have attempted at least something for those who had so generously befriended me? Was not my shrinking from the ordeal of the disguise but a harking back to those little conventions which I had resolved to cast aside forever? Could I make a better use of my life than to lay it down, if need be, in such a cause?
Reasoning thus, I caught something of the intensity of purpose which dominated Angélique, and with fingers as eager as her own I prepared myself for my venture.