A cheer followed, and Valmond motioned for wine to go round
freely. Then he got off his horse, and, taking the weeping old man by
the arm, himself loosening the drum from his belt, they passed into the
hotel.
"A cheerful bit of foolery and treason," said Monsieur De la Riviere to
Madame Chalice.
"My dear Seigneur, if you only had more humour and less patriotism!" she
answered. "Treason may have its virtues. It certainly is interesting,
which, in your present gloomy state, you are not."
"I wonder, madame, that you can countenance this imposture," he broke
out.
"Excellent and superior monsieur, I wonder sometimes that I can
countenance you. Breakfast with me on Sunday, and perhaps I will tell
you why--at twelve o'clock."
She drove on, but, meeting the Cure, stopped her carriage.
"Why so grave, my dear Cure?" she asked, holding out her hand.
He fingered the gold cross upon his breast--she had given it to him two
years before.
"I am going to counsel him--Monsieur Valmond," he said. Then, with a
sigh: "He sent me two hundred dollars for the altar to-day, and fifty
dollars to buy new cassocks for myself."
"Come in the morning and tell me what he says," she answered; "and bring
our dear avocat."
As she looked from her window an hour later, she saw bonfires burning,
and up from the village came the old song, that had prefaced a drama in
Pontiac.
But Elise Malboir had a keener interest that night, for Valmond and
Parpon brought her uncle "General Lagroin," in honour to her mother's
cottage; and she sat and listened dreamily, as Valmond and the old man
talked of great things to be done.
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