"High instincts, before which our mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised."

The hall through which they passed was sufficiently dark to prevent the masculine eye of Ringfield noting that long and systematic neglect marked every inch of the wall, every foot of flooring, every window, door, stair, sill and sash. Nothing was clean, nothing was orderly, and as the books and papers contained in the invalid's room had overflowed into the halls, lying on the steps and propped up on chairs and in corners, the dirt and confusion was indescribable. Hideous wallpapers were peeling off the damp and cracking wall, tattered shreds showing, by the accumulation on their fly-specked yellow edges of thick dust, how long they had waved upon the close air of this uncared-for house. All the woodwork was rough and horrid to the touch by reason of the millions of similar fly-specks; had nothing ever been washed here? Cats were alarmingly abundant. Three lay about in the hall; four were stretched on the grass in front of the door, and Ringfield saw two more—so large and brown and with such huge tigers' heads, prowling under the trees, that he scarcely took them for cats. The chain of barns, farm-buildings and sheds was all in the same dilapidated, dirty condition, and it was hardly strange that the vision of that white loveliness—the peacock—which had tempted him in this direction, crossed his mind as they proceeded to the landing-place. And yet the Clairvilles were not without servants. Mademoiselle, having regained a measure of her wonted serenity, began to describe her retainers, proving that servants were almost as numerous as cats in that neighbourhood. The elderly woman, the man, the two girls and the boy, were all one family, and living "about" as their mistress carelessly put it, in the barns and out-buildings, divided the work among them. The woman's husband, Xavier Archambault, employed at the Fall as assistant to look after the bridge and dam, helped at odd moments in the business of the estate, thus making in all six servants, a rather large contingent for a dwindling concern; and Ringfield, listening to these wonders, could not fail to observe that their united wages must reach a high figure.

"Oh—they are not paid!" exclaimed mademoiselle, "at least, not in money. My brother, who is, as I was going to tell you, a person of stronger character than you might imagine, has never paid a cent of wages to anyone in his life. He has managed to infect all his work-people, and, indeed, many in the village, with his own belief that it is an honour to labour for him and his, he being a De Clairville and the highest in rank in this part of the country. Of course you, having lived in the West, and knowing so much of the world, must see how foolish this is, how it involves us—my brother and myself—in many unpleasant and difficult situations."

A note of challenge in her voice led Ringfield, who had taken off his coat and was paddling, to stop sharply and observe her.

"Pray be careful!" she cried in sudden alarm. "When I was at home all the time I could stand any kind of behaviour in a canoe, but lately I seem to be losing my nerve. I suppose you must kneel?"

"Certainly. Much the easier, therefore the safer way."

"Therefore! All easy things—safe?"

He was clumsy at this kind of refined innuendo, and considered before replying.

"No, perhaps not. But I give you my word not to disturb the equilibrium again."

The lake, a basin of clear water, small as Lower Canadian lakes go, and framed with thick foliage reaching to the edge, was absolutely silent, absolutely deserted, on this warm afternoon. Ringfield found it almost too hot to talk, but his companion seemed to enjoy the unburdening of various confidences, and as she had such a willing listener she had every opportunity, of taking her own time, and of delivering herself in her own way, of a remarkable tale.

That, within two days of his enforced sojourn at St. Ignace, the young preacher found himself thus—floating on a silent desolate lake in one of the remotest parishes of Quebec, listening to a family history of mediaeval import from the lips of a woman, young too, cultivated, self-possessed to the degree of hauteur, whose Christian name was as yet unknown to him, was in itself remarkable.

Ringfield, ardent, gifted, good, inherited directness of aim, purity of ideals, and narrowness of vision, from the simple working stock from which he had sprung, and it would have been easy for a man of the world to foresee the limitations existing in such a nature. When mademoiselle therefore began the Clairville history by relating some circumstances in the flighty career of the Sieur De Clairville, hinting at certain deflections and ridiculing uncertain promises of reformation, of reparation—for even the seventeenth century had its cant—the matter was far from being either real or relevant to her listener. What had he to do with a bundle of old-world memoirs, even when edited and brought up to date by an interesting woman! What to him was the spotless character of the ignoble FranÇois, son of a butcher, created a Clairville for his plebeian virtues, or the lives of each succeeding descendant of FranÇois, growing always a little richer, a little more polished, till in time the wheel turned and the change came in the fortunes of the house which culminated in the present! All these were mere abstractions, dull excerpts from some period of remote and unfamiliar history, because that system which gave him his secular education did not include knowledge of his country from an historical standpoint.

Macaulay and Alison, Gibbon and Grote, Motley and Bancroft—but not yet Garneau or Parkman. The lady might have romanced indeed, with glib falseness gilding picturesque invention, and he would not have detected it.

As it was, the truth remained sufficiently high coloured. He listened, he apprehended, but he could not see that it mattered.

"So now," remarked mademoiselle, trailing her large firm white hand through the water and knitting her firm black brows still closer, "I have brought the story up to the appearance on the scene of my brother, whom you have met, no doubt pondered over, perhaps shrunk from."

"No, no!" cried Ringfield. "You mistake. I was conscious only of having no right to enter."

"Ah—I could see, I could see. Poor Henry! He is the victim of many delusions. One—that he is a great invalid and cannot leave his room, that room you saw him in to-day. Another—that we are properly De Clairvilles, but that we have somehow lost the prefix, the 'De,' in course of years, and that a Bill may have to pass in Parliament to permit us using it legally. There has been already in this antiquated province a case very similar to ours, but it was a genuine case, which ours is not. My brother owns the largest collection of old French and old French-Canadian memoirs and books in the country, I believe, and it may be that out of constant poring over them has come this ruling passion, this dominant idea, to prove himself a seigneur, and more, a noble, grand seigneur de France! VoilÀ! but I forget, Mr. Ringfield hardly speaks French, and I—hate the sound of it, only it crops out sometimes."

"But why—and you—how do you speak such good English? I have been wondering over that much more than over the case of your brother."

Ringfield, as he asked the question, stopped paddling and sat down cautiously opposite his companion. Her dark brows clouded even more and the warm colouring of her face went white; she again resembled the fury who had lectured the unfortunate pedant in the arm-chair.

"I knew you would ask that. Every one does. I suppose it is to be expected. Well then, my mother was English and I was educated at a mixed school, ladies' school at Sorel, not a convent. I was quick at the language—voilÀ!"

"Perhaps it was rude in me to ask. I believe I am deficient in manners; my friends often tell me so. But you spoke such good English; better far than mine."

"That would not be difficult. You have the accent strange to me, that of the West. Then I have studied for the stage, in fact, and now I suppose I shall frighten you altogether and make you upset the canoe when I tell you that I am on the stage."

It only needed some such declaration to convince Ringfield that, still floating on this silent, desolate lake he was indeed removed from all his usual convictions, prejudices and preferences. What had he to do with the stage! To the Methodist of his day the Stage was deliberately ignored in the study of social conditions. It was too evil to be redeemed. Its case was hopeless. Then let it alone and let us pretend it does not exist. This in effect was his actual state of mind.

"I have never been to the theatre," he said simply. "They say that at some future day we, as Methodists, may have to take up the question of amusements and consider the theatre seriously. It may be that we shall have to face other facts—the craving in this age of people, especially our young people, for greater liberty of thought, and I suppose, corresponding liberty of action. But so far these questions have not come very much before me, and I must plead entire ignorance of all matters connected with the profession to which you belong."

Mademoiselle Clairville's brow was now completely serene; a laugh was on her lips and a smile in her eyes as she listened to the staid phrases of her new friend.

"You and your young people!" she cried. "How old are you yourself, pray? Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty—no, hardly twenty-seven. You may tell me your age quite frankly, for I will tell you mine. I am twenty-nine. Do you not think that I look much younger?"

He was in truth a good deal surprised, for to his age—twenty-six, as she had correctly guessed—twenty-nine seems old for a woman.

Before he could frame a clumsy allusion to her youthful appearance she had continued with a change of manner:—

"But sometimes I look older, yes, old enough. Tell me, you who preach your English sermons, so long, so much longer than our Catholic ones, about trees and rivers and fish—do you never preach too about men and women and their faults and vices and tempers? Ah! there, Monsieur le p'tit curÉ, you should know that I am a good subject for a sermon, I and my temper! For I have a temper. Oh, yes, indeed I have."

There being no instinct—at least not as yet developed—of gallantry in Ringfield's composition, he did not seek to weakly deny her self-imputed charge. Had he not already seen a proof of the truth of it in her treatment of Henry Clairville? Was there not even now a curious malicious gleam in her dark eye, a frown upon her forehead, a kind of puckered and contemptuous smile upon her lips? Handsome and probably clever, even good she might be, and yet remain—unamiable.

"I am afraid you have not had a happy life," said he, very gently, and the simplicity and kindness of his manner smote upon her stormy countenance, so that it melted and all the ugly hardness and latent shrewishness died away.

"I have not, I have not!" she cried. "You see my situation here, my surroundings. Henry, my poor unfortunate brother; the old house, which might be so comfortable, falling to pieces for lack of money to keep it up; these terrible people, the Archambaults, pretending to work, but living on me and eating up everything on the place; the village, with none in it to know or speak to that I care about; the lonely country all around, cold in winter, hot in summer; the conviction that Henry will get worse; the fear of—the fear of——." She stopped.

"The fear of what?" said Ringfield quietly. "You need have no fear whatever of anything. You are one of God's children. Perfect love casteth out fear. Dear Miss Clairville, so recently a stranger, but rapidly becoming so well known to me, never mind about sermons and conversions. Never mind about Catholic or Protestant, bond or free, English Church or Methodist. Just think of one thing. Just cling to one thought. You are in God's hands. He will not try you too far." Very impressively he repeated this, bending forward till he could look into her troubled eyes. "I believe, and you must believe too, that in His infinite goodness He will not try you too far."

A shiver passed over her frame. She lowered her eyes, her mouth twitched once or twice, then she remained silent and passive while Ringfield, thinking he had said enough, resumed his paddling. It was some minutes before conversation recommenced and then Mademoiselle Clairville requested him to return.

"Do not think," said she, "that I am offended at your preaching to me," and now a mild sadness had succeeded to her wilder mood, "but one of the servants is signalling to me from the shore; my brother probably is in need of me. You will come to see us, to see me again, and I shall hope to hear that you will remain at St. Ignace for the winter at least. Here is one patient of the soul, and we may soon find another."

"If it would make any difference to you,——" he began, still without any trace of innuendo or latent gallantry, but she interrupted him with some flashing out of former merriment:—

"How could it, when I am away nearly all the time or try to be? I am now, like you, considering an offer, and may say adieu to St. Ignace, the Fall, and Henry, any day. But even if I go, some fascination will draw me back. It always does."

As he left her at her own gate the face at the window was still blinking at them. Dimly the ardent young Methodist began to discern some contingencies in life of which he had never dreamed. And how admirably he had perjured himself in the interview! Had he not forgotten the particular sect to which he belonged? Had he not besought his hearer to forget whether she was Catholic or Protestant? Had he not, in short, for the first time in his ministerial experience, fulfilled the plain duty of a true Christian without stopping to think of ways and means and artifices? Looking back, he was amazed to remember how earnest he had been and how sudden but genuine was his sympathy with this lonely woman. Apprehensive for her safety and content of mind, stimulated as he had never been before by her frank, original presence, he mentally resolved to remain at St. Ignace for her sake, or if her protracted absence ensued, as she hoped, to manage to return when she did.

He had arrived at this decision when, on drawing near Poussette's, he perceived that individual himself in little straw hat and large white apron standing at the door engaged in critically examining an enormous catch of fish—black bass and lunge, just brought in by the guides. Ringfield asked the time, for he began to realize how long he had been absent. It was nearly seven o'clock and the evening meal was over.

Poussette at first tried to be angry. He declared that there was nothing left. Ringfield smiled and strode to the fish lying in glittering silver heaps on the grass. He lifted up the biggest bass and carried it into the house, and the coolness of the deed appeased Poussette.

"That is all right, Mr. Ringfield," said he, slapping him quite affectionately on the back. "You shall have a good tea, a good tea, after which you shall hear what we have to say. Mister Desnoyers, Patrick, myself, all wait for you and all shall be arrange, eh? Every one round come in, come in and drink bon santÉ in something good I got on Saturday. Ah—you shall see, you shall see!"

As Ringfield went in to his "good tea" Madame Poussette came out. Rather to his astonishment, she sang to herself in passing, and although her sad vacant eyes were not bent on him, he felt as if the words were intended for his ear. What were those words?

His knowledge of French was limited, but still he could make out a kind of rhyming refrain—

"DerriÈre
Chez mon pÈre
Il-y-avait un grand oiseau."

He stopped and tried to catch more as Madame went down the walk singing low to herself.

"DerriÈre
Chez mon pÈre
Il-y-avait un grand oiseau.
la, la, la, la—
C'Était beau Ça, c'Était beau."