Chapter 9

"A spoiled child."

"Of course! But the King also was a spoiled child, which is to be expected in a king. However, that did not smooth things for my little father, as the King was beside himself with rage--furious, wild!"

"He was jealous?"

The Princess laughed--more of a triumphant chuckle than a laugh. "And well he had reason!"

"Then the lady preferred your father to the King?"

"_Mon Dieu!_ She had eyes." Then, with a slight motion of a hand: "And she had sense."

Elinor smiled. "But a king is a great catch."

The little lady shrugged her shoulders. "That made nothing to her. She was as good as the King. She was a _grande_ princess. Not an every-day princess, like me."

"Are _you_ a princess?" Elinor asked in surprise.

"Yes, an ordinary princess--the common, every-day kind. But _she_ was a _princesse royale_. And so he did this." With a comprehensive gesture of both her hands she indicated the tapestries, paintings, busts, furniture, and the entire contents of the house.

"You mean he brought his own possessions off here, across the water?"

"Precisely."

"And did he bring the Princess with him?"

"What a question! It is evident, Mademoiselle, that you were not acquainted with my father, the Duc de Fontrévault."

"Then this princess was your mother?"

"Yes."

"And that is her grave out there, beneath the pines, next to his?"

The Princess nodded, and blinked, but smiled: "Poor mamma! She only lived a few years after that; I was nine when she died."

"Were you born here?"

"In there." And she glanced toward Elinor's chamber.

"You must have had a lonely childhood."

"No. In those days we had a servant--and a cow."

"But why should your father and mother escape to this wilderness? Surely a woman may marry whom she pleases in these days."

"Certainly. But an agent was sent to arrest my father--on a legal pretext--and in the quarrel this agent--also a gentleman of high rank--was killed. So that was murder. Just what his Majesty wished, perhaps. And my father, in haste, packed a few things on a ship and disappeared."

"A few things!"

"The King never knew where he went. Nor did any one else. But enough of myself and family. Tell me of your coming here. And of your friend. Is she still here?"

"My friend was a man."

"Ah!"

The Princess raised her eyebrows, involuntarily. "Pardon me if I am indiscreet, but you are not married?"

"No."

Now this Parisian, with other Europeans, had heard startling tales about American girls; of their independence and of their amazing freedom. She leaned forward, a lively curiosity in her face. To her shame be it said that she was always entertained by a sprightly scandal, and seldom shocked.

"How interesting! And this gentleman, was he young?"

But the American girl did not reply at once. She had divined her companion's thoughts and was distressed, and provoked. This feeling of resentment, however, she repressed as she could not, in justice, blame the Princess--nor anybody else--for being reasonably surprised. So, she began at the beginning and told the tale: of the stupid error by which she was left with a man she hardly knew on this point of land; of their desperate effort to escape in September, by taking to a raft and floating down the river; how they failed to land and were carried out to sea, nearly perishing from exposure. She described their reaching shore at last, several miles to the east. And when she spoke of the early snow, in October, of the violent storms and the long winter, the Princess nodded.

"Yes, I remember those winters well. But we were happy, my father and I."

"And so were we," said Elinor.

"Then this stranger turned out well? A gentleman, a man of honor?"

"Yes, oh, yes! And more than that. He gave his life for mine."

From the look which came into Elinor's face, and from a quiver in the voice, the sympathetic visitor knew there was a deeper feeling than had been expressed. She said, gently:

"You are tired now. Tell me the rest of the story later."

"No, no. I will tell you now. One morning, about a month ago, the first pleasant day after a week of rain, we started off along the bank of the river to see if the flood had carried away our raft--the new one. Just out there, in the woods, not far from here, I stepped to the edge of the bank and looked down at the water. The river was higher than we had ever seen it,--fuller, swifter, with logs and bushes in it. Even big trees came along, all rushing to the sea at an awful speed."

"Yes, I know that river in spring. The water is yellow, and with a frightful current,--fascinating to watch, but it terrifies."

Elinor nodded. "Fascinating to watch, yes. But Pats told me--"

"Pats?"

"My friend. His name was Patrick."

"And Pats is the little name--the familiar--for Patrick?"

"Sometimes."

"Ah, I never knew that! But pardon me. Please go on."

"He told me to come back--that the bank was undermined by the river and might give way. He said: 'Whoever enters that river to-day leaves hope behind.' At the very instant I started back the earth under me gave way, and--and, well, I went down to the river and under the water--an awful distance. I thought I should never come up again. But I did come up at last, gasping, half dead, several yards from the shore. The current was carrying me down the river, but I saw Pats on the bank above, watching me. His face was pale and he was hurrying along to keep near. Oh, how I envied him, up there, alive and safe!"

"Poor child! I can well believe it!"

"He cried out, 'Try and swim toward the shore! Try hard!' And I tried, but was carried along so fast that I seemed to make no headway. Then I saw him run on ahead, pull off his shoes and outer clothes, slide down the bank and shoot out into the water toward me."

"Bravo!" exclaimed the listener. "Bravo! That was splendid!" And in her enthusiasm she rose, and sat down again.

Elinor sank back in her chair. But the Princess was leaning forward with wide open eyes and parted lips.

"Then what happened?"

"He reached me, caught me with one hand by my dress between the shoulders, and told me again to swim hard for the shore. It seemed hopeless, at first, for the current was frightful--oh, frightful! It washed us under and tried to carry us out again. But Pats pushed hard, and after an awful struggle--it seemed a lifetime--we we reached the shore."

"Ah, good!"

But in the speaker's face there came no enthusiasm. She closed her eyes, leaning back in her chair as if from physical weakness. The Princess got up, and once more came and stood by the girl's chair, and gently patted a shoulder.

"Tell me the rest later. There is no haste."

"I shall feel better for telling it now. I started to climb up the bank. It was steep, all stones and gravel, and a few little bushes. The stones gave way and kept letting me down--slipping backward. He was still in the water. I heard him tell me to go slow and not hurry. He was very calm, and his voice came up from beneath me, for--" and here she laughed, a little hysterical laugh--more of a sob than a laugh, as if from over-taxed nerves--"for I seemed to be sitting on his head."

The Princess also laughed, responsively.

"I shall never know just how it happened, but in one of my struggles the whole bank seemed to slide from under me into the river. I clung to a bush and called to him, and tried to look down, but--he was gone."

A silence followed. The Princess rested her cheek against Elinor's hair, and murmured words of comfort. "How long ago did this happen?"

"A month ago."

More from sympathy than from conviction the Princess said:

"He may return. Stranger things have happened. Perhaps he was carried out to sea--and rescued."

Elinor shook her head. "He was buried beneath the rocks and gravel. If he had risen to the surface, I should have seen him, for the day was clear. No, I know where he is. I see him, all night long, in my sleep, lying at the bottom of the river, his face looking up."

"My child," said the Princess, "listen. With your sorrow you have precious memories. From what you have _not_ told me of your Pats, I know him well. He loved you. That is clear. You loved him. That is also clear. Alone with him in this cottage through an endless winter, and perfectly happy! _Voyons_, you confessed all when you said 'we were happy!' He was the man of a woman's heart! With no hesitation, he gave his life for yours: to save you or die with you. Tell me, what can Heaven offer that is better than a love like that?"

She closed her eyes and drew a long breath. "Ah, these Americans! These extraordinary husbands! I have done nothing but hear of them!"

"He was not my husband."

"But he was to be?"

"Oh, yes!"

The Princess rose, walked around the table and stood beside the chair that held her portrait.

"My child, I respect your grief. My heart bleeds for you, but you are to be envied." With uplifted eyebrows, and her head slightly to one side, she went on: "My husband, the Prince de Champvalliers is good. We adore one another. As a husband he is satisfactory,--better than most. But if, by chance, I should fall into a river, with death in its current, and he were safe and dry upon the bank--"

Sadly she smiled, and with a shrug of the shoulders turned about and moved away.

Erect, and with a jaunty step, she walked about the room, renewing acquaintance with old friends of her youth: with the little tapestried fables on the chairs and sofa; with certain portraits and smaller articles. But it was evident that the story she had heard still occupied her mind, for presently she came back to the table and stood in front of Elinor. With a slight movement of the head, as if to emphasize her words, she said, impressively, yet with the suggestion of a smile in her half-closed eyes:

"Were I in your place, my child, I should grieve and weep. Yes, I should grieve and weep; but I should enjoy my sorrow. You are still young. You take too much for granted. You are too young to realize the number of women in the world who would gladly exchange their living husbands for such a memory." She raised her eyebrows, closed her eyes, and murmured, with a long, luxurious sigh: "The heroism! the splendid sacrifice! I tell you, Mademoiselle, no woman lives in vain who inspires in an earthly lover a devotion such as that!"

XVI

NEWS FROM THE WORLD

Jacqes soon appeared. As his knowledge of English was scant, the Princess gave him the story she herself had heard. Great was his horror on learning that when last he came--in September--and left the usual provisions, the Duc de Fontrévault had been in his grave since the previous June.

He asked many questions. Elinor told him everything that could be of interest, and the Princess listened eagerly to these replies. The old servant seemed pleased when Elinor turned to him with a smile and said, in his own language: "So you are the French Fairy. That is what we always called you after finding your letter. Our lives were saved by that unexpected supply of food."

Then they talked of other matters,--of what things should be carried back to France. And as the strength and energy of the American girl seemed to have gone--owing, perhaps, to a too meagre diet--the Princess insisted upon having her own maid sent up to pack the trunks. Jacques departed on this errand, and to get one or two men. He soon returned with them, and accompanied by the Archbishop. With a half-suspicious interest His Grace studied this young woman, still seated in her usual place by the table, her eyes, with a listless gaze, following the daughter of the house as she opened drawers and cabinets.

His Grace was standing by the big tapestry, between the two busts, his hands behind him.

"Pardon me, my child," he said with a deep-toned benevolence, calculated to impress the guiltless and to awe the guilty, "but what I find it difficult to understand is why your friends did not look for you. They certainly must have guessed the situation."

Elinor shook her head gently, as if she also recognized the mystery.

"To what do you attribute this singular indifference to your fate on the part of your family and friends?"

"I cannot guess. I have no idea."

"It was purely accidental your--your arrival here?"

"Naturally."

In this reply there was something that smote the Archbishop's dignity. It seemed verging upon impertinence. Again he scrutinized the faded garments, the sunburned face, the hands somewhat roughened by toil, now folded on the table before her. His perceptions in feminine matters were less acute than those of the Princess. He remembered a young man had been a companion to this girl in this cottage, and during a whole year. It was only natural that the Princess, in treating this person with so much consideration, should be misled by a very tender, romantic heart, and by a Parisian standard of morality too elastic and too easy-going for more orthodox Christians. Into his manner came a suggestion of these thoughts,--his tone was less gracious, a trifle more patronizing. But as the victim supposed this to be his usual bearing, she felt no resentment.

"It was certainly a most unprecedented--one might almost say, incredible--blunder. And in daylight, too."

She nodded.

"Do I understand that you came here in a steamboat?"

"Yes."

"And the steamboat, after leaving you and the young man, kept on her course toward Quebec?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember the name of the boat?"

"The _Maid of the North_."

"The _Maid of the North_!"

Elinor took no notice of this exclamation of surprise. In a purely amiable manner she was becoming tired.

"The _Maid of the North_, did you say?"

"Yes."

"But, my child, when was that? When were you left here?"

With a sigh of weariness, she replied: "A year ago this month, on the ninth of June."

"The ninth of June," he repeated, in a lower tone, more to himself than to her. "Why--then, she was lost between this point and Quebec."

"Lost?"

And Elinor looked up at him with startled eyes.

"Yes." Then he added: "But I see that you could not have known it."

"Do you mean the _Maid of the North_ never reached Quebec?"

"Nothing has been heard of her since the eighth of last June. On that day she was spoken by another steamer near the Magdalen Islands."

Elinor had risen from her chair, and stood leaning against the table. "That is horrible! horrible! It does not seem possible! What do they think became of her?"

"Nobody knows. There are several theories, but nothing is certain. You are probably the only survivor."

"But were there no traces of her,--no wreckage, nothing to give a clew?"

"Nothing."

With drooping head and a hand across her eyes, she murmured: "Poor Louise! And my uncle--and Father Burke!" And she sank back into her chair.

The Archbishop took a step nearer. "Did you know Father Burke?"

"He was a dear friend."

At this reply the eyebrows of the holy man were elevated. A light broke in upon him. With a manner more sympathetic than heretofore--and less patronizing--he said gently:

"Father Burke was a dear friend of mine, also,--an irreparable loss to the Church and to all who knew him. Is it possible you are the young lady whom he held in such high esteem and affection, and of whom he wrote to me? Were you in his spiritual charge, with thoughts of a convent?"

She nodded.

Into his face came a look of joy. Then, in a voice brimming over with tenderness and paternal sympathy:

"I cannot express my pleasure, my heartfelt gratitude, that you have been spared us. Of your exalted character and of your holy aspirations our dear friend spoke repeatedly. And now, in your hour of affliction, it will be not only the duty, but the joy and privilege of our Holy Church to serve you as counsellor and guide."

As the girl made no reply, he went on, in a subdued and gently modulated voice:

"At this time more than ever before, you must need the consolation of Religion. Am I not right in believing that you feel a deeper yearning for the closer love and protection of our Heavenly Father, for that security and peace which the outer world can never offer? And too well we know that the outer world is uncharitable and cruel. It might look askance upon this strange adventure. But the arms of Our Mother are ever open. You are always her daughter, and with _her_ there is nothing to forgive. All is love, and faith, and peace."

To this deeply religious girl, now stricken and weary, whose heart was numbed with grief, whose hope was crushed, these words came as a voice from Heaven. She held forth a hand which the prelate held in both his own.

"God bless you, my child."

XVII

VOICES OF THE WOOD

When the Princess realized the somewhat famished condition of her new acquaintance she ordered a tempting lunch from the yacht, and had it served in the cottage: fresh meat, with fruit, vegetables, and cream and butter--new dishes among the Pines of Lory! Of this repast the Archbishop partook with spirit.

"Truly an invigorating air. What an appetite it gives!" And he devoured the viands with a priestly relish, but always with arch-episcopal dignity. The person, however, for whom the meal was served leaned back wearily in her chair, barely tasting the different dishes.

"You will starve, my child," said the Princess, gently. "Really, you must eat something to keep alive."

The effort was made, but with little success. And in Elinor's face her friend divined an over-mastering grief.

The two women, after lunch, strolled out among the pines, toward the bench by the river. It became evident to the Princess, from the manner in which her companion leaned upon her arm, that days of fasting--and of sorrow--had diminished her strength. Upon the rustic bench Elinor sank with a sigh of relief. But into her face came a smile of gratitude as her eyes met those of the little lady who stood before her, and who was looking down with tender sympathy.

To Elinor's description of how she and Pats found the old gentleman reclining upon this same bench, the Princess gave the closest attention. Every detail was made clear by the narrator, who took the same position at the end of the seat, crossing her knees and leaning a cheek upon one hand, as if asleep. Then the Princess, after asking many questions, took the vacant place beside her and they sat in silence, looking across the river, to the woods beyond. To both women came mournful thoughts, yet with pleasant memories. And soothing to the spirit of each was the murmur of the woods. To Elinor this plaint of the pines was always a consoling friend: a sad but soothing lullaby which now had become a part of her existence. It recalled a year of priceless memories. But these memories of late had become an unbearable pain,--yet a pain to which she clung.

For the Princess, also, there were memories, stirred by these voices overhead, but softened by time. Hers was not the anguish of a recent sorrow.

From these day-dreams, however, she was brusquely awakened. With no word of warning, the girl at her side had sprung to her feet and faced about. Into her face had come a look of unspeakable joy. Her lips were parted in excitement, and a sudden color was in her cheeks.

This transformation from deepest grief to an overpowering ecstasy alarmed her companion. And in Elinor's eyes there was a feverish eagerness, intense, almost delirious, as she exclaimed:

"You heard it?"

"What?"

"That sound! The notes of a quail!"

The Princess shook her head.

"Oh, yes, you heard it! Don't say you did not hear it!"

Then, when the Princess, still looking up in vague alarm, gently shook her head a second time, Elinor reached forth a hand imploringly, as it were, and whispered:

"You must have heard it. The whistle of a quail, back there in the woods?"

To the little woman upon the bench these words had no significance, but her sympathy was aroused. That sensitive nerves and an aching heart should succumb, at last, to despair and loneliness and fasting she could readily understand, and she answered, kindly:

"I heard no bird, dear child, but it may be there. Perhaps your hearing is better than mine."

At this reply all the joy went out of Elinor's face, leaving a look so spiritless and despairing that her friend, who could only guess at her companion's thoughts, added:

"Or it may be nothing. You merely dreamed it, perhaps."

Elinor straightened up. She drew a long breath, and murmured, in a low voice from which all hope had fled:

"Of course! I dreamed it," and sank wearily into her place upon the bench.

Furtively, but with pity in her face, the Princess regarded the drooping head and closed eyes; then she stood up and placed a hand affectionately upon Elinor's shoulder.

"I understand your feelings. Rest here until the boat goes."

Indicating, with a wave of her hand, the big trees towering high above, she added:

"Your last moments with these old friends shall be respected. I am going to the two graves over there, and will return before it is time to start."

She walked away, into the grove.

Again, among the shadows of these pines, came memories of her childhood, with the feeling of being alone in a vast cathedral. And the fragrance, how she loved it! And she loved this obscurity, always impressive and always solemn, yet filling her soul with a dreamy joy.

In her passage between the columns of this shadowy temple she stopped and turned about for a parting glance at her friend. In the same position, her head upon her hand, Elinor still sat motionless, a picture of patient suffering. For a moment the Princess watched her in silence, then slowly turned about and started once again upon her way. Only a step, however, had she taken when the color fled from her cheeks and she halted with a gasp of terror. Gladly would she have concealed herself behind the nearest tree, but she dared not move.

In the gloom of the forest, scarcely a dozen yards away, a figure was moving silently across her path in the direction of the cottage. Such a figure she had seen in pictures, but never in the flesh. The North American savage she always dreaded as a child; and once, at a French fair, she had seen a wild man. This creature recalled them both. He was brown of color, with disorderly hair and stubby beard, and no covering to his body except strips of cloth, faded and in rags, suspended from one shoulder, held at the waist by a cord, and dangling in tatters about his legs. Bending slightly forward as he walked--or rather glided--among the pines, he was peering eagerly in the direction of the house. Had his gaze been less intent, he would have seen this other figure, the woman watching him in silent terror. Furtively she glanced about the grove to see if other creatures were stealing from tree to tree. But she failed to discover them.

Now the Princess, while fashionable and frivolous, and reprehensible in many ways, was not devoid of courage. And her conscience told her to give warning to her friends. This heroic decision was swiftly made. In making it, however, her cheeks grew paler.

But she was spared the sacrifice. As she drew in her breath for the perilous attempt, she saw the man himself stand still and straighten up. Then, before she could utter the warning,--before her own little mouth was ready,--the shadowy silence of the wood was broken, not by the dreaded warwhoop, but by an imitation, startlingly perfect, of the notes of a quail.