We traced the hard route which I had followed the day before, and reached Green Bay about dawn. Pierre Grignon went to bed exhausted. I had some breakfast and waited for Skenedonk. He had not returned, but had sent one man back to say there was no clue. The meal was like a pa.s.sover eaten in haste. I could not wait, but set out again, with a pillion which I had carried uselessly in the night strapped again upon the horse for her seat, in case I found her; and leaving word for the Oneida to follow.

I had forgotten there was such a person as Abbe Edgeworth, when he led a horse upon the ferry boat.

"You ride early as well as late. May I join you?"

"I ride on a search which cannot interest you, monsieur."

"You are mistaken. I understand what has disturbed the house, and I want to ride with you."

"It will be hard for a horseman accustomed to avenues."

"It will suit me perfectly."

It did not suit me at all, but he took my coldness with entire courtesy.

"Have you breakfasted, monsieur?"

"I had my usual slice of bread and cup of water before rising," he answered.

Again I led on the weary trail to my house. Abbe Edgeworth galloped well, keeping beside me where there was room, or riding behind where there was not. The air blew soft, and great shadow clouds ran in an upper current across the deepest blueness I had seen in many a day. The sun showed beyond rows of hills.

I bethought myself to ask the priest if he knew anything about Count de Chaumont. He answered very simply and directly that he did; that I might remember Count de Chaumont was mentioned in Mittau. The count, he said, according to common report, had retired with his daughter and his son-in-law to Blois, where he was vigorously rebuilding his ruined chateau of Chaumont.

If my mind had been upon the priest, I should have wondered what he came for. He did not press his message.

"The court is again in exile?" I said, when we could ride abreast.

"At Ghent."

"Bellenger visited me last September. He was without a dauphin."

"We could supply the deficiency," Abbe Edgeworth pleasantly replied.

"With the boy he left in Europe?"

"Oh, dear no. With royal dukes. You observed his majesty could not pension a helpless idiot without encouraging dauphins. These dauphins are thicker than blackberries. The dauphin myth has become so common that whenever we see a beggar approaching, we say, 'There comes another dauphin.' One of them is a fellow who calls himself the Duke of Richemont. He has followers who believe absolutely in him. Somebody, seeing him asleep, declared it was the face of the dead king!"

I felt stung, remembering the Marquis du Plessy's words.

"Oh, yes, yes," said Abbe Edgeworth. "He has visions too. Half memories, when the face of his mother comes back to him!"

"What about his scars?" I asked hardily.

"Scars! yes, I am told he has the proper stigmata of the dauphin. He was taken out of the Temple prison; a dying boy being subst.i.tuted for him there. We all know the dauphin's physician died suddenly; some say he was poisoned; and a new physician attended the boy who died in the Temple. Of course the priest who received the child's confession should have known a dauphin when he saw one. But that's neither here nor there.

We lived then in surprising times."

"Madame d'Angouleme would recognize him as her brother if she saw him?"

I suggested.

"I think she is not so open to tokens as at one time. Women's hearts are tender. The d.u.c.h.ess d'Angouleme could never be convinced that her brother died."

"But others, including her uncle, were convinced?"

"The Duke of Richemont was not. What do you yourself think, Monsieur Williams?"

"I think that the man who is out is an infinite joke. He tickles the whole world. People have a right to laugh at a man who cannot prove he is what he says he is. The difference between a pretender and a usurper is the difference between the top of the hill and the bottom."

The morning sun showed the white mortar ribs of my homestead clean and fair betwixt hewed logs; and brightened the inside of the entrance or hall room. For I saw the door stood open. It had been left unfastened but not ajar. Somebody was in the house.

I told Abbe Edgeworth we would dismount and tie our horses a little distance away. And I asked him to wait outside and let me enter alone.

He obligingly sauntered on the hill overlooking the Fox; I stepped upon the gallery and looked in.

The sweep of a gray dress showed in front of the settle. Eagle was there. I stood still.

She had put on more wood. Fire crackled in the chimney. I saw, and seemed to have known all night, that she had taken pieces of unbroken bread and meat left by Pierre Grignon on my table; that her shoes were cleaned and drying in front of the fire; that she must have carried her dress above contact with the soft ground.

When I asked Abbe Edgeworth not to come in, her dread of strangers influenced me less than a desire to protect her from his eyes, haggard and draggled as she probably was. The instinct which made her keep her body like a temple had not failed under the strong excitement that drove her out. Whether she slept under a bush, or not at all, or took to the house after Pierre Grignon and I left it, she was resting quietly on the settle before the fireplace, without a stain of mud upon her.

I could see nothing but the foot of her dress. Had any change pa.s.sed over her face? Or had the undisturbed smile of my Cloud-Mother followed me on the road?

Perhaps the cloud had thickened. Perhaps thunders and lightnings moved within it. Sane people sometimes turn wild after being lost, running from their friends, and fighting against being restrained and brought home.

The gray dress in front of my hearth I could not see without a heaving of the breast.

X.

How a man's life is drawn, turned, shaped, by a woman! He may deny it.

He may swagger and lie about it. Heredity, ambition, l.u.s.t, n.o.ble aspirations, weak self-indulgence, power, failure, success, have their turns with him. But the woman he desires above all others, whose breast is his true home, makes him, mars him.

Had she cast herself on the settle exhausted and ill after exposure?

Should I find her muttering and helpless? Worse than all, had the night made her forget that she was a Cloud-Mother?

I drew my breath with an audible sound in the throat. Her dress stirred.

She leaned around the edge of the settle.

Eagle de Ferrier, not my Cloud-Mother, looked at me. Her features were pinched from exposure, but flooded themselves instantly with a blush.

She s.n.a.t.c.hed her shoes from the hearth and drew them on.

I was taken with such a trembling that I held to a gallery post.

Suppose this glimpse of herself had been given to me only to be withdrawn! I was afraid to speak, and waited.

She stood up facing me.