“I know, mon père, that many will point the finger of shame at me; will say I am without decorum and without pride. But, my father, I had been living without the love for which my soul had hungered all these years, until the want became so strong that it swept away all the petty rules of life and humbled my pride in the dust. I came because I could not stay, and now my one prayer is to find him.”
When I finished, he was silent for a long time. “My child,” he said, at last, “that you have greatly dared, I need not tell you. But you know nothing of the pain, the misconstruction, the evil report to which you have exposed yourself.
“These 'petty rules,' as you style the barriers which society has established, are the safeguards of men and women in all their relations, and these you have chosen to disregard. For this sin against the social law you will suffer as surely as you would for any infraction of that law which, because it is higher, we call divine. You have only begun to realise it, because you have now met with one of those disarrangements we name 'accident.' Your plan, had it not been for this, would have carried you safely to Louisbourg, where you were to have met and married M. de Maxwell; but now your whole design is overthrown; Louisbourg is an impossibility; you are going in an opposite direction. Again, up to the present you have only met with your inferiors, to whom you owed no explanation of your position, but now the first man you meet happens to belong to your own class, and your isolation is no longer possible. Being a woman of high courage and principle, you have revealed to him your position in all its helplessness. But are you prepared to do the like when you meet the next person to whom an explanation is due? Can you again say, 'I am Margaret Nairn come out to meet my lover'?”
“Oh, my father, my father!” I cried, with a bewildering shame at my heart, and tears which I could not repress filling my eyes. “How could I foresee this? Everything seemed so plain. I was no longer a young girl, but a woman grown, with all a woman's strength of love, when the death of Lady Jane left me without a soul to whom I could turn, save him to whom I had given my first and only love. I had been denied all its expression at the time I most longed for it; I was deprived of its support when I most needed it, through the mistaken sense of honour which drove into exile the gentlest and most devoted of men. He was not one to push his own interest at any time, and now that I am burdened with this undesired fortune, his pride would fasten the door between us. It seemed to me—I thought—that I could come to him and say, 'See, I bring back what was yours by right.' Then, I had no doubts, no hesitations; but now, they crowd in upon me when I am alone, and at times I cannot keep my heart from sinking. I am not afraid, but I am in a dark place, and I know not where to turn for light.”
“Go to Her who has known sorrow above all women, my daughter. Each of us will think this over in such light as we may find, and will decide as we may be guided. Meantime do not waste your strength or courage in unavailing regrets or reproaches. Remember this poor woman with you has her own trial and anxiety. Give her your sympathy and your help. Much may come to us through our own effort, if it be for another.”
When we made our camp that night, Lucy and I, much to our delight, were allowed to take a share in the preparation of the meal, and afterwards we sate before the blazing fire, while the priest told us of his life among the roving Indians, of their strange customs and stranger beliefs, of their patient endurance in times of want, of their despair when disease made its appearance in their lodges, and of the ruin wrought among them by the white man's traffic in strong waters. “For the Indian it is no question of French or English; whichever conquers, he must go—nay, is passing even now—with only such feeble hands as mine to point the way of his going.” And there were tears in his voice as he spake.
Before we parted for the night I asked by what name we might address him.
“Le père Jean,” he answered.
“That is not difficult to remember,” I said, smiling.
“Which is important, my daughter, for it has to serve me from Gaspé to Michilimacinac. There is but little danger of confusion in the names of missionaries,” he added, sadly; “the labourers are few.”