Three days passed. At Orléans the settlers had had two or three
brushes with marauding Mohawks. A letter from Father Chaumonot at the
mission in Onondaga reported favorable progress. D'Hérouville was
again out of hospital; and De Leviston had stolen quietly away to
Montreal, where he was shortly to succumb to the plague. Only three
persons knew of the remarkable conflict between the marquis and
D'Hérouville: the son, Brother Jacques, and the Vicomte d'Halluys, who
possessed that mysterious faculty of finding out many things of which
the majority were unaware. As for the marquis, Brother Jacques
fostered the belief that it had been only a wild dream.
Each morning Madame de Brissac watched with growing eagerness the
lading of the good ship Henri IV. It seemed impossible to her that the
deception in regard to the Chevalier could continue much longer. Where
was the dénouement on which she had builded so fondly? She had put it
off so many times that perhaps it was now too late. Sooner or later
Victor would slip, and the mask would be at an end. And why not? Why
not have done with a comedy which had grown stale? Why not tell
Monsieur du Cévennes that she was Gabrielle Diane de Montbazon, she
whose miniature he had crushed beneath the heel of his riding boot?
Rather would she tell him than leave it to the offices of D'Hérouville
or the vicomte. Surely her purpose had been to bring him to his knees
and then laugh! Relent? Not while her cup still held a drop of pride.
She had been mad indeed. To have come here to Quebec with purpose and
impulse undefined! Daily she mocked her weakness. Truly she was the
daughter of her mother, extravagant, unbalanced, blown hither and
thither by caprice as a leaf is blown by an autumn wind.
The thought of him stirred her as nothing had ever before stirred her.
It was hate, it was wounded pride crying out for vengeance, it was the
barb of scorn urging her to give back in kind. And, heaven above! he
had been on his knees, and she had dallied with the moment of revenge
even as a cat dallies with a mouse. Diane! She detested the name.
Fool! And yet, why was he here? What was this sudden veil of mystery
which hid him from her secret eyes? Victor knew, and yet his love for
her was not so great that he could tell her another's secret. And the
governor knew, D'Hérouville, and the vicomte; and they were as silent
as stone. Love? A fillip of her finger for love! Happy indeed was
she to learn that neither the marquis nor the Chevalier would return to
France on the Henri IV. Such a way have the women.