Jacqes soon appeared. As his knowledge of English was scant, the
Princess gave him the story she herself had heard. Great was his horror
on learning that when last he came--in September--and left the usual
provisions, the Duc de Fontrevault had been in his grave since the
previous June.
He asked many questions. Elinor told him everything that could be of
interest, and the Princess listened eagerly to these replies. The old
servant seemed pleased when Elinor turned to him with a smile and said,
in his own language: "So you are the French Fairy. That is what we
always called you after finding your letter. Our lives were saved by
that unexpected supply of food."
Then they talked of other matters,--of what things should be carried
back to France. And as the strength and energy of the American girl
seemed to have gone--owing, perhaps, to a too meagre diet--the Princess
insisted upon having her own maid sent up to pack the trunks. Jacques
departed on this errand, and to get one or two men. He soon returned
with them, and accompanied by the Archbishop. With a half-suspicious
interest His Grace studied this young woman, still seated in her usual
place by the table, her eyes, with a listless gaze, following the
daughter of the house as she opened drawers and cabinets.
His Grace was standing by the big tapestry, between the two busts, his
hands behind him.
"Pardon me, my child," he said with a deep-toned benevolence, calculated
to impress the guiltless and to awe the guilty, "but what I find it
difficult to understand is why your friends did not look for you. They
certainly must have guessed the situation."
Elinor shook her head gently, as if she also recognized the mystery.
"To what do you attribute this singular indifference to your fate on the
part of your family and friends?"
"I cannot guess. I have no idea."
"It was purely accidental your--your arrival here?"
"Naturally."
In this reply there was something that smote the Archbishop's dignity.
It seemed verging upon impertinence. Again he scrutinized the faded
garments, the sunburned face, the hands somewhat roughened by toil, now
folded on the table before her. His perceptions in feminine matters were
less acute than those of the Princess. He remembered a young man had
been a companion to this girl in this cottage, and during a whole year.
It was only natural that the Princess, in treating this person with so
much consideration, should be misled by a very tender, romantic heart,
and by a Parisian standard of morality too elastic and too easy-going
for more orthodox Christians. Into his manner came a suggestion of these
thoughts,--his tone was less gracious, a trifle more patronizing. But as
the victim supposed this to be his usual bearing, she felt no
resentment.
"It was certainly a most unprecedented--one might almost say,
incredible--blunder. And in daylight, too."
She nodded.
"Do I understand that you came here in a steamboat?"
"Yes."
"And the steamboat, after leaving you and the young man, kept on her
course toward Quebec?"
"Yes."
"Do you remember the name of the boat?"
"The _Maid of the North_."
"The _Maid of the North_!"
Elinor took no notice of this exclamation of surprise. In a purely
amiable manner she was becoming tired.
"The _Maid of the North_, did you say?"
"Yes."
"But, my child, when was that? When were you left here?"
With a sigh of weariness, she replied: "A year ago this month, on the
ninth of June."
"The ninth of June," he repeated, in a lower tone, more to himself than
to her. "Why--then, she was lost between this point and Quebec."
"Lost?"
And Elinor looked up at him with startled eyes.
"Yes." Then he added: "But I see that you could not have known it."
"Do you mean the _Maid of the North_ never reached Quebec?"
"Nothing has been heard of her since the eighth of last June. On that
day she was spoken by another steamer near the Magdalen Islands."
Elinor had risen from her chair, and stood leaning against the table.
"That is horrible! horrible! It does not seem possible! What do they
think became of her?"
"Nobody knows. There are several theories, but nothing is certain. You
are probably the only survivor."
"But were there no traces of her,--no wreckage, nothing to give a clew?"
"Nothing."
With drooping head and a hand across her eyes, she murmured: "Poor
Louise! And my uncle--and Father Burke!" And she sank back into her
chair.