But to me awaking in the raw of the morning, a prisoner, the comfort seemed less sure. All through the weary, soul-sapping weeks that followed, it paled and shrank, till nothing was left of it but a hopeless sort of obstinacy, so rooted in the central fibre-knots of my being that to the very teeth of fate my pulses still kept beating out the vow, “I will win! I will win!”

For cheer, all my cousin’s sober and well-considered confidence could not keep that in my heart. Of Yvonne, I could get not one word directly. I saw her hand in the fact that nothing more was heard of the charge of “spy” against me. Yet this benefit had a bitterness in it, for I knew she must have done it through Anderson. Intolerably did that knowledge grate.

Mother PÊche came daily to the wicket, but could never boast a message for my ear—and in this reticence of Yvonne’s I saw a hardness of resolve which made my heart sink. Father Fafard, too, came daily with food for me, and with many a little loving kindness; but of Yvonne he would not speak. Marc, one day, encountered him on the subject, but prevailed not at all, in so much that they two parted in some heat.

At last from Mother PÊche came word that my dear maid was ill, obscurely ailing, pale-lipped, and with no more of the fathomless light in her great eyes. The reassurance that this gave me on the score of her love was beyond measure overbalanced by the new fear that it bred and nourished. Would not the strain become too great for her—so great that either her promise to wait would break down, or else her health? Here was a dilemma, and upon one or the other of the horns of it I writhed hourly. It cost little to feed me, those weeks in the Grand PrÉ chapel prison.

Meanwhile, it is but just to our English jailers—they were men of New England chiefly, from Boston, Plymouth, Salem, and that vicinage—to record it of them that they were kind and little loved their employment. They held the doom of banishment to be just, but they deplored the inescapable harshness of it. As I came to learn, it was for New England’s sake chiefly, and at her instance, that old England had ordained the great expulsion. Boston would not trust the Acadians, and vowed she could no longer endure a wasp’s nest at her door. Thus it was that the decree had at last gone forth; and even I could not quite deny the justice of it. I knew that patient forbearance had long been tried in vain; and I bethought me, too, of the great Louis’ once plan, to banish and utterly purge away all the English of New England and New York.

Of affairs and public policy in the world outside our walls I learned from Lieutenant Waldron, who came in often among us and made me his debtor by many kindly courtesies. He had an interest in me from the first—in the beginning, as I felt, an interest merely of curiosity, for he doubtless wondered that Mademoiselle de Lamourie should stoop to be entangled with two lovers. But soon he conceived a friendship for me, which I heartily reciprocated. I have ever loved the English as a brave and worthy enemy; and this young officer from Plymouth town presented to my admiration a fair epitome of the qualities I most liked in his race. In appearance he was not unlike Anderson, but of slimmer build, with the air of the fighter added, and a something besides which I felt, but could not name. This something Anderson lacked—and the lack was subtly conspicuous in a character which even my jealous rivalry was forced to call worthy of love.

The reservation in my own mind I found to lie in Waldron’s also, and with even more consequence attached to it. Anderson having chanced to be one day the subject of our conversation, I let slip hint of the way it galled me to feel myself in his debt for exemption from the charge of spying.

“I can easily understand,” said he, “that you feel it intolerable. I am surprised, more and more daily, at Mademoiselle de Lamourie’s acceptance of his suit. Oh, you French,—may I say it, monsieur?—what a merchandise you make of your young girls!”

“You put it unpleasantly, sir,” said I; “but too truly for me to resent it. You surprise me, however, in what you imply of Anderson. I liked him heartily at first sight. I know him to be brave, though he does not carry arms. He is capable and clear-sighted, kind and frank; and surely he has beauty to delight a woman’s eyes. I am in despair when I think of him.”

“He is all you say,” acknowledged Waldron, with a shrewd twinkle in his sharp blue eyes; “nevertheless there is something he is not, which damns him for me. I don’t quite like him, and that’s a fact. At the same time I know he’s a fine fellow, and I ought to like him. I don’t mind telling you, for your discomfort, that he has done all that man could do to get you out of this place. He has been to Halifax about it, and dared to make himself very disagreeable to the governor when he was refused. It is not his fault you are not out and off by this time.”

“Thank God, he failed!” said I, with fervour.

“So should I say in your case, monsieur,” he replied, with a kind of dry goodwill.

To this obliging officer—in more kindly after-years, I am proud to say, destined to become my close friend—I owed some flattering messages from Madame de Lamourie. I knew she liked me—had ever liked me, save during those days of my ignominious eclipse when I seemed to all Grand PrÉ an accomplice of the Black AbbÉ and Vaurin. I had a suspicion that she would not be deeply displeased should I, by any hook or crook, accomplish the discomfiture of Anderson. But I well knew her friendliness to me would not go so far as open championship. She would obey her husband, for peace’ sake; and take her satisfaction in a little more delicate malice. I pictured her as making the handsome English Quaker subtly miserable by times.

From Giles de Lamourie, however, I received no greeting. I took it that he regarded me as a menace not only to his own authority, but to his daughter’s peace. A prudent marriage,—a regular, well-ordered, decently arranged for marriage,—in such he fancied happiness for Yvonne. But I concerned me not at all for opposition of his. I thought that Yvonne, if ever she should choose, could bring him to her feet.

At last there came a break in the monotony of the days—a break which, for all its bitterness, was welcomed. Word came that another ship was tardily ready for its freight of exiles. The weary faces of the guard brightened, for here was evidence that something was being done. Within the chapel rose a hum of expectation, and all speculated on their chances. For if exile was to be, “Let it come quickly” was the cry of all.

But no—not of all. I feared it, with a physical fear till then unknown to me. To me it meant a new and appalling barrier. Here but two wooden walls and a stone’s throw of wintry space fenced me from her bodily presence. But after exile, how many seas, and vicissitudes, and uncomprehending alien faces!

But I was not to go this time; nor yet my cousin Marc, who, having at last received from Quebec authentic word of the health and safety of his Puritan, was looking out upon events with his old enviable calm.

On the day when a stir in the cottages betokened that embarkation was to begin, the south windows of the chapel were in demand. They afforded a clear view of the village and a partial view of the landing-place. Benches were piled before them, and we took turns by the half hour in looking out, those at the post of observation passing messages back to the eager rows behind. It was plain at once that the cottages at the west end of the village were to be cleared in a block. On a sudden there was a sharp outcry from the three Le Boutilliers, as they saw their homely house-gear being carried from their doorways and heaped upon a lumbering hay-wagon. They were of a nervous stock, and forthwith began a great lamentation, thinking that their wives and families were to be sent away without them. When the little procession started down the street toward the landing—the old grandmother and the two littlest children perched on the wagon-load, the wives and other children walking beside in attitudes that proclaimed their tears—the good fellows became so excited as to trouble our company.

“Chut, men!” cried Marc, in a tone of sharp command. “Are you become women all at once? There will be no separation of families this time, when there is but one ship and no room for mistakes. The guards yonder will be calling for you presently, never fear.”

This quieted them; for my cousin had a convincing way with him, and they accounted his wisdom something beyond natural.

Then there came by two more wagons, and another sorrowful procession, appearing from the direction of the Habitants; and the word “Le Marchands” went muttering through the prison. Le Marchand settlement was moving to the ship—and even now a cloud of black smoke, with red tongues visible on the morning air, showed us what would befall the houses of Grand PrÉ when the folk of Grand PrÉ should be gone.

The Le Marchand men made no sign, save to glower under their brows and grip the window sashes with tense fingers. They were of different stuff from the Le Boutilliers, these black Le Marchands. They set their teeth hard, and waited.

So it went on through the morning, one man after another seeing his family led away to the ship—his family and some scant portion of his goods; and thus we came to know what men among us were like to be called forth on this voyage.

Presently the big door was thrown open, and all faces flashed about to the new interest. Outside stood a double red line of English soldiers. An officer—the round-faced Colonel Winslow himself—stepped in, a scroll of paper curling in his hand. In a precise and something pompous voice he read aloud the names of those to go. The Le Marchands were first on the roll; then the Le Boutilliers, Ba’tiste Chouan, Jean and Tamin Masson, and a long list that promised to thin our crowded benches by one-third. But I was left among the unsummoned; and my cousin Marc, and long Philibert Trou, and the wily fox La Mouche; and I saw Marc’s lips compress with a significant satisfaction when he saw these two remaining. Vaguely I thought—“He has a plan!” But thereafter, in my gloom, I thought no more of it.

So these chosen ones marched off between their guards; and that afternoon the ship went out on the ebb tide with a wind that carried her, white-sailed, around the dark point of Blomidon. Grand PrÉ chapel prison settled apathetically back to a deeper calm.