She put her arms about my neck and cried. I tried to comfort her, but it was a long time before I succeeded.

I locked her door on the outside, and that night I slept with the key beneath my pillow.

CHAPTER VI

AT THE FOOT OF THE CLIFF

The next morning, after again cautioning Jacqueline not to leave her room until I returned, I went to the house of Captain Dubois on Paul Street, in the Lower Town.

I was admitted by a pleasant-looking woman who told me that the captain would not be home until three in the afternoon, so I returned to the chateau, took Jacqueline for a sleigh ride round the fortifications, and delighted her, and myself also, by the purchase of two fur coats, heavy enough to exclude the biting cold which I anticipated we should experience during our journey.

In the afternoon I went back to Paul Street and found M. Dubois at home. He was a man of agreeable appearance, a typical Frenchman of about forty-five, with a full face sparsely covered with a black beard that was beginning to turn grey at the sides, and with an air of sagacious understanding, in which I detected both sympathy and a lurking humour.

When I explained that I wanted to secure two passages to St. Boniface, his brows contracted.

"So you, too, are going to the Chateau Duchaine!" he exclaimed. "Is there not room for two more on the boat of Captain Duhamel?"

I disclaimed all knowledge of Duhamel, but he looked entirely unconvinced.

"It is a pity, _monsieur_, that you are not acquainted with Captain Duhamel," he said dryly, "because I cannot take you to St. Boniface.

But undoubtedly Captain Duhamel will assist you and your friend on your way to the Chateau Duchaine."

"Why do you suppose that I am going to the Chateau Duchaine?" I inquired angrily.

He flared up, too. "_Diable_!" he burst out, "do you suppose all Quebec does not know what is in the wind? But since you are so ignorant, _monsieur_, I will enlighten you. We will assume, to begin then, that you are not going to the chateau, but only to St. Boniface, perhaps to engage in fishing for your support. Eh, _monsieur_?"

Here he looked mockingly at my fur coat, which hardly bore out this presumption of my indigence.

"_Eh bien_, to continue. Let us suppose that the affairs of M. Charles Duchaine have interested a gentleman of business and politics whom we will call M. Leroux--just for the sake of giving him a name, you understand," he resumed, looking at me maliciously. "And that this M.

Leroux imagines that there is more than spruce timber to be found on the seigniory. _Bien_, but consider further that this M. Leroux is a mole, as we call our politicians here. It would not suit him to appear openly in such an enterprise? He would always work through his agents in everything would he not being a mole?

"Let us say then that he arranges with a Captain Duhamel to convey his party to St. Boniface to which point he will go secretly by another route and that he will join them there and--in short, _monsieur_, take yourself and your friend to the devil, for I won't give you passage."

His face was purple, and I assumed that he bore no love for Simon, whose name seemed to be of considerable importance in Quebec. I was delighted at the turn affairs were taking.

"You have not a very kindly feeling for this mythical person whom we have agreed to call Leroux," I said.

Captain Dubois jumped out of his chair and raised his arms passionately above him.

"No, nor for any of his friends," he answered. "Go back to him--for I know he sent you to me--and tell him he cannot hire Alfred Dubois for all the money in Canada."

"I am glad to hear you say that," I answered, "because Leroux is no friend of mine. Now listen to me, Captain Dubois. It is true that I am going to the chateau, if I can get there, but I did not know that Leroux had made his arrangements already. In brief, he is in pursuit of me and I have urgent reasons for avoiding him. My companion is a lady----"

"Eh?" he exclaimed, looking stupidly at me.

"And I am anxious to take her to the chateau, where we shall be safe from the man----"

"A lady!" exclaimed the captain. "A young one? Why didn't you tell me so at first, _monsieur_? I'll take you. I will do anything for an enemy of Leroux. He put my brother in jail on a false charge because he wouldn't bow to him--my brother died there, _monsieur_--that was his wife who opened the door to you. And the children, who might have starved, if I had not been able to take care of them! And he has tried to rob me of my position, only it is a Dominion one--the rascal!"

The captain was becoming incoherent. He drew his sleeve across his eyes.

"But a lady!" he continued, with forced gaiety a moment later, "I do not know your business, _monsieur_, but I can guess, perhaps----"

"But you must not misunderstand me," I interposed. "She is not----"

"It's all right!" said the captain, slapping me upon the back. "No explanations! Not a word, I assure you. I am the most discreet of men. Madeleine!"

This last word was a deep-chested bellow, and in response a little girl came running in, staggering under the weight of the captain's overcoat of raccoon fur.

"That is my overcoat voice," he explained, stroking the child's head.

"My niece, _monsieur_. The others are boys. I wish they were all girls, but God knows best. And, you see, a man can save much trouble, for by the tone in which I call Madeleine knows whether it is my overcoat or my pipe or slippers that I want, or whether I am growing hungry."

I thought that the captain's hunger voice must shake the rafters of the old building.

"And now, _monsieur_," he continued seriously, when we had left the house, "I am going to take you down to the pier and show you my boat.

And I will tell you as much as I know concerning the plans of that scoundrel. In brief, it is known that a party of his friends has been quartered for some time at the chateau; they come and go, in fact, and now he is either taking more, or the same ones back again, and God knows why he takes them to so desolate a region, unless, as the rumour is, he has discovered coal-fields upon the seigniory and holds M.

Duchaine in his power. Well, _monsieur_, a party sails with Captain Duhamel on tonight's tide, which will carry me down the gulf also.

"You see, _monsieur_," he continued, "it is impossible to clear the ice unless the tide bears us down; but once the Isle of Orleans is past we shall be in more open water and independent of the current. Captain Duhamel's boat is berthed at the same pier as mine upon the opposite side, for they both belong to the Saint-Laurent Company, which leases them in winter.

"We start together, then, but I shall expect to gain several hours during the four days' journey, for I know the _Claire_ well, and she cannot keep pace with my _Sainte-Vierge_. In fact it was only yesterday that the government arranged for me to take over the _Sainte-Vierge_ in place of the _Claire_, which I have commanded all the winter, for it is essential that the mails reach St. Boniface and the maritime villages as quickly as possible. So you must bring your lady aboard the _Sainte-Vierge_ by nine to-night.

"I shall telegraph to my friend Danton at St. Boniface to have a sleigh and dogs at your disposal when you arrive, and a tent, food, and sleeping bags," continued Captain Dubois, "for it must be a hundred and fifty miles from St. Boniface to the Chateau Duchaine. It is not a journey that a woman should take in winter," he added with a sympathetic glance at me, "but doubtless your lady knows the way and the journey well."

The question seemed extraordinarily sagacious; it threw me into confusion.

"You see, M. Danton carried the mails by dog-sleigh before the steamship winter mail service was inaugurated," he went on, "and now he will be glad of an opportunity to rent his animals. So I shall wire him tonight to hold them for you alone, and shall describe you to him.

And thus we will check M. Leroux's designs, which have doubtless included this point. And so, with half a day's start, you will have nothing to fear from him--only remember that he has no scruples.

Still, I do not think he will catch you and Mlle. Jacqueline before you reach Chateau Duchaine," he ended, chuckling at his sagacity.

"Ah, well, _monsieur_, who else could your lady be?" he asked, smiling at my surprise. "I knew well that some day she must leave those wilds.

Besides, did I not convey her here from St. Boniface on my return, less than a week ago, when she pleaded for secrecy? I suspected something agitated her then. So it was to find a husband that she departed thus?

When she is home again, kneeling at her old father's feet, pleading for forgiveness, he will forgive--have no fear, _mon ami_."

So Jacqueline had left her home not more than a week before! And the captain had no suspicion that she was married then! Yet Pere Antoine claimed to have performed the ceremony.

To whom? And where was the man who should have stood in my place and shielded her against Leroux?

I made Dubois understand, not without difficulty, that we were still unmarried. His face fell when he realized that I was in earnest, but after a little he made the best of the situation, though it was evident that some of the glamour was scratched from the romance in his opinion.

By now we had arrived at the wharf. It was a short pier at the foot of one of the numerous narrow streets that run down from the base of the mighty cliff which ascends to the ramparts and Park Frontenac. On either side, wedged in among the floes, lay a small ship of not many tons' burden--the _Claire_ and the _Sainte-Vierge_ respectively. The latter vessel lay upon our right as we approached the end of the wharf.

"Hallo! Hallo, Pierre!" shouted Dubois in what must have resembled his dinner voice, and a seaman with a short black beard came running up the deck and stopped at the gangway.

"It is all right," said Dubois, after a few moments' conversation.