Angelique had no mind to allow her cavalier to be made a horse-block of for anybody but herself. She jerked the bridle, and making her horse suddenly pirouette, compelled Louise to jump down. The mischievous little fairy turned her bright laughing eyes full upon La Force and thanked him for his great courtesy, and with a significant gesture--as much as to say he was at liberty now to escort Angelique, having done penance for the same--rejoined her expectant companions, who had laughed heartily at her manoeuvre.
"She paints!" was Louise's emphatic whisper to her companions, loud enough to be heard by La Force, for whom the remark was partly intended. "She paints! and I saw in her eyes that she has not slept all night! She is in love! and I do believe it is true she is to marry the Intendant!"
This was delicious news to the class of Louises, who laughed out like a chime of silver bells as they mischievously bade La Force and Angelique bon voyage, and passed down the Place d'Armes in search of fresh adventures to fill their budgets of fun--budgets which, on their return to the Convent, they would open under the very noses of the good nuns (who were not so blind as they seemed, however), and regale all their companions with a spicy treat, in response to the universal question ever put to all who had been out in the city, "What is the news?"
La Force, compliant as wax to every caprice of Angelique, was secretly fuming at the trick played upon him by the Mischief of the Convent,--as he called Louise Roy,--for which he resolved to be revenged, even if he had to marry her. He and Angelique rode down the busy streets, receiving salutations on every hand. In the great square of the market-place Angelique pulled up in front of the Cathedral.
Why she stopped there would have puzzled herself to explain. It was not to worship, not to repent of her heinous sin: she neither repented nor desired to repent. But it seemed pleasant to play at repentance and put on imaginary sackcloth.
Angelique's brief contact with the fresh, sunny nature of Louise Roy had sensibly raised her spirits. It lifted the cloud from her brow, and made her feel more like her former self. The story, told half in jest by Louise, that she was to marry the Intendant, flattered her vanity and raised her hopes to the utmost. She liked the city to talk of her in connection with the Intendant.
The image of Beaumanoir grew fainter and fainter as she knelt down upon the floor, not to ask pardon for her sin, but to pray for immunity for herself and the speedy realization of the great object of her ambition and her crime!
The pealing of the organ, rising and falling in waves of harmony, the chanting of choristers, and the voice of the celebrant during the service in honor of St. Michael and all the angels, touched her sensuous nature, but failed to touch her conscience.
A crowd of worshippers were kneeling upon the floor of the Cathedral, unobstructed in those days by seats and pews, except on one side, where rose the stately bancs of the Governor and the Intendant, on either side of which stood a sentry with ported arms, and overhead upon the wall blazed the royal escutcheons of France.
Angelique, whose eyes roved incessantly about the church, turned them often towards the gorgeous banc of the Intendant, and the thought intruded itself to the exclusion of her prayers, "When shall I sit there, with all these proud ladies forgetting their devotions through envy of my good fortune?"
Bigot did not appear in his place at church to-day. He was too profoundly agitated and sick, and lay on his bed till evening, revolving in his astute mind schemes of vengeance possible and impossible, to be carried out should his suspicions of Angelique become certainties of knowledge and fact. His own safety was at stake. The thought that he had been outwitted by the beautiful, designing, heartless girl, the reflection that he dare not turn to the right hand nor to the left to inquire into this horrid assassination, which, if discovered, would be laid wholly to his own charge, drove him to the verge of distraction.
The Governor and his friend Peter Kalm occupied the royal banc.
Lutheran as he was, Peter Kalm was too philosophical and perhaps too faithful a follower of Christ to consider religion as a matter of mere opinion or of form rather than of humble dependence upon God, the Father of all, with faith in Christ and the conscientious striving to love God and his neighbor.
A short distance from Angelique, two ladies in long black robes, and evidently of rank, were kneeling with downcast faces, and hands clasped over their bosoms, in a devout attitude of prayer and supplication.
Angelique's keen eye, which nothing escaped, needed not a second glance to recognize the unmistakable grace of Amelie de Repentigny and the nobility of the Lady de Tilly.
She started at sight of these relatives of Le Gardeur's, but did not wonder at their presence, for she already knew that they had returned to the city immediately after the abduction of Le Gardeur by the Chevalier de Pean.
Startled, frightened, and despairing, with aching hearts but unimpaired love, Amelie and the Lady de Tilly had followed Le Gardeur and reoccupied their stately house in the city, resolved to leave no means untried, no friends unsolicited, no prayers unuttered to rescue him from the gulf of perdition into which he had again so madly plunged.
Within an hour after her return, Amelie, accompanied by Pierre Philibert, had gone to the Palace to seek an interview with her brother. They were rudely denied. "He was playing a game of piquet for the championship of the Palace with the Chevalier de Pean, and could not come if St. Peter, let alone Pierre Philibert, stood at the gate knocking!"
