Diane! From beyond the wilderness spoke a voice, the luring voice of
love. Diane! He was free to seek her; no barrier stood between. He
could return to France. Her letter! He drew it forth, his hands
trembling like a woman's. "France is large. If you love me you will
find me. . . . I kiss your handsome grey eyes a thousand times." There
was still the delicate odor of vervain--her perfume--clinging to it.
Ah, if that terrible old man were not lying again! If he but spoke the
truth!
As he strode back and forth his foot struck something. He bent and
picked up the object. It was a grey mask with a long curtain. He
carried it to the candle-light and inspected it. A grey mask: what was
such a thing doing in Quebec? There were no masks in Quebec save those
which nature herself gave to man, that ever-changing mask called the
human face. A grey mask: what did it recall to him? Ah! Like a bar
of light the memory of it returned to him. The mysterious woman of the
Corne d'Abondance! But this mask could not be hers, since she was by
now in Spain. With a movement almost unconscious he held the silken
fabric close to his face and inhaled . . . vervain!
"Monsieur," said a soft but thrilling voice from the doorway, "will you
return to me my mask, which I dropped in this room a few moments ago?"
As he raised his head the woman stopped, transfixed.
"Diane?" leaped from the Chevalier's lips. He caught the back of a
chair to steady himself. He was mad, he knew he was mad; it had come
at last, this loosing of reason.