"You see, Jacqueline," I explained, "it will look strange our travelling together, unless some close relationship is supposed to exist between us. I might subject you to embarrassment--so I shall call you my sister, Miss Hewlett, and you will call me your brother Paul." And I handed her my visiting card, because she had never heard my surname before.

"I shall be glad to think of you as my brother Paul," she answered, looking at the card. She held it in her right hand, and it was not until the middle of the meal that the left hand came into view.

Then I discovered that she had taken off her wedding ring.

I wondered what thought impelled her to do this, whether it was coquetry or the same instinct which seemed to interpret the situation at all times perfectly, though it never welled up into her consciousness.

We sped northward all that morning, stopping at many little wayside stations, and as we rushed along beside the ice-bound St. Francis the air ever grew colder, and the land, deep in snow, and the tall pines, white with frost, looked like a picture on a Christmas card.

At last the St. Lawrence appeared, covered with drifting floes; the Isle of Orleans, with the Falls of Montmorency behind it; the ascending heights which slope up to the Chateau Frontenac, the fort-crowned citadel, the long parapet, bristling with guns.

Then, after the ferry had transferred us from Levis we stood in Lower Quebec.

We had hardly gone on board the ferryboat when an incident occurred that greatly disturbed me. A slightly built, well-dressed man, with a small, upturned mustache and a face of notable pallor, passed and repassed us several times, staring and smiling with cool effrontery at both of us.

He wore a lambskin cap and a fur overcoat, and I could not help associating him with the dead man, or avoiding the belief that he had travelled north with us, and that Leroux had been to see him off at the station.

I was a good deal troubled by this, but before I had decided to address the fellow we landed, and a sleigh swept us up the hill toward the chateau to the tune of jingling bells. It was a strange wintry scene--the low sleighs, their drivers wrapped in furs and capped in bearskin, the hooded nuns in the streets, the priests, soldiers, and ancient houses. The air was keen and dry.

"This is Quebec, Jacqueline," I said.

I thought that she remembered unwillingly, but she said nothing.

I dared ask her no questions. I fancied that each scene brought back its own memories, but not the ideas associated with the chain of scenes.

We secured adjacent rooms at the chateau, and leaving Jacqueline to unpack her things, and under instructions not to leave her room and promising to return as soon as possible, I started out at once to find Maclay & Robitaille's.

This proved a task of no great difficulty. It was a little shop where leather goods were sold, situated on St. Joseph Street. A young man with a dark, clean-shaven face, was behind the counter. He came forward courteously as I approached.

"I have come on an unusual mission," I began foolishly and stopped, conscious of the inanity of this address. What a stupid thing to have said! I must have aroused his suspicions immediately.

He begged my pardon and called a man from another part of the shop.

And that gave me my chance over again, for I realized that he had not understood my English.

"Do you remember," I asked the newcomer, "selling a collar to a young lady recently--no, some long time ago--a dog-collar, I mean?"

The proprietor shrugged his shoulders. "I sell a good many dog-collars during the year," he answered.

I took the plate from my pocket and set it down on the counter. "The collar was set with silver studs," I said. "This was the plate." Then I remembered the name Leroux had used and flung it out at random. "I think it was for a Mlle. Duchaine," I added.

The shot went home.

"Ah, _monsieur_, now I remember perfectly," answered the proprietor, "both from the unusual nature of the collar and from the fact that there was some difficulty in delivering it. There was no post-office nearer the _seigniory_ than St. Boniface, where it lay unclaimed for a long time. I think _madamoiselle_ had forgotten all about the order.

Or perhaps the dog had died!"

"Where is this _seigniory_?"

"The _seigniory_ of M. Charles Duchaine?" he answered, looking curiously at me. "You are evidently a stranger, _monsieur_, or you would have heard of it, especially now when people are saying that----"

He checked himself at this point. "It is the oldest of the _seigniories_," he continued. "In fact, it has never passed out of the hands of the original owners, because it is almost uninhabitable in winter, except by Indians. I understand that M. Duchaine has built himself a fine chateau there; but then he is a recluse _monsieur_, and probably not ten men have ever visited it. But _mademoiselle_ is too fine a woman to be imprisoned there long----"

"How could one reach the chateau?" I interpolated.

He looked at me inquiringly as though he wondered what my business there could be.

"In summer," he replied, "one might ascend the Riviere d'Or in a canoe for half the distance, until one reached the mountains, and then----"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I do not know. Possibly one would inquire of the first trapper who passed in autumn. In winter one would fly.

It is strange that so little is known of the _seigniory_, for they say the Riviere d'Or----"

"The Golden River?"

"Has vast wealth in it, and formerly the Indians would bring gold-dust in quills to the traders. But many have sought the source of this supply in past times and failed or died, and so----" He shrugged his shoulders again.

"You see, M. Duchaine is a hermit," he continued. "Once, so my father used to say, he was one of the gayest young men in Quebec. But he became involved in the troubles of 1867--and then his wife died, and so lie withdrew there with the little _mademoiselle_--what was her name?"

He called his clerk.

"Alphonse, what is the name of that pretty daughter of M. Charles Duchaine, of Riviere d'Or?" he asked.

"Annette," answered the man. "No, Nanette. No Janette. I am sure it ends with 'ette' or 'ine,' anyway."

"_Eh bien_, it makes no difference," said the proprietor, "because, since she left the Convent of the Ursulines here in Quebec, where she was educated, her father keeps her at the chateau, and you are not likely to set eyes on M. Charles Duchaine's daughter."

A sudden stoppage in his flow of words, an almost guilty look upon his face, as a new figure entered the little shop, directed my attention toward the stranger.

He was an old man of medium size, very muscularly built, stout, and with enormous shoulders. He wore a priest's _soutane_, but he did not look like a priest--he looked like a man's head on a bull body. His smooth face was tanned to the colour of an Indian's--his bright blue eyes, almost concealed by their drooping, wrinkled lids, were piercing in their scrutiny.

He wore a bearskin hat and furs of surprising quality. It was not so much his strange appearance that attracted my interest as the singular look of authority upon the face, which was yet deeply lined about the mouth, as though he could relax upon occasion and become the jolliest of companions.

And he spoke a pure French, interspersed with words of an uncouth patois, which I ascribed to long residence in some remote parish.

"_Bo'jour_, Pere Antoine," said the shopkeeper deferentially, fixing his eyes rather timidly upon the old priest's face.

"_Eh bien_, who is this with whom thou gossipest concerning the daughter of M. Duchaine?" inquired Father Antoine, looking at me keenly.

"Only a customer--a stranger, _monsieur_," answered the proprietor, rubbing his hands together. "He wishes to see--a dog collar, was it not?" he continued, turning nervously toward me.

"You talk too much," said Pere Antoine roughly. "Now, _monsieur_," he said, addressing me in fair English, "what is the nature of your business that it can possibly concern either M. Duchaine or his daughter? Perhaps I can inform you, since he is one of my parishioners."

"My conversation was not with you, _monsieur le cure_," I answered shortly, and left the shop. I had ascertained what I needed to know, and had no desire to enter into a discussion of my business with the old man.

I had not gone three paces from the door, however, when the priest, coming up behind me, placed a huge hand upon my shoulder and swung me around without the least apparent effort.

"I do not know what your business is, _monsieur_," he said, "but if it were an honest one you would state it to me. If you wish to see M.

Duchaine I am best qualified to assist you to do so, since I visit his chateau twice each year to carry the consolations of religion to him and his people. But if your business is not honest it will fail. End it then and return to your own country."

"I do not intend to discuss my business with you, _monsieur_," I answered angrily. It is humiliating to be in the physical grip of another man, even though he be a priest.

He let me go and stood eyeing me with his keen gaze. I jumped on a passing car, but looking back, I saw him striding along behind it. He seemed to walk as quickly as the car went through the crowded street, and with no effort.