The Lady de Tilly drew Pierre out to talk of his travels, his studies, and his military career, of which he spoke frankly and modestly. His high principles won her admiration; the chivalry and loyalty of his character, mingled with the humanity of the true soldier, touched a chord in her own heart, stirring within her the sympathies of a nature akin to his.

The presence of Pierre Philibert, so unforeseen at the old Manor House, seemed to Amelie the work of Providence for a good and great end--the reformation of her brother. If she dared to think of herself in connection with him it was with fear and trembling, as a saint on earth receives a beatific vision that may only be realized in Heaven.

Amelie, with peculiar tact, sought to entangle Le Gardeur's thoughts in an elaborate cobweb of occupations rivalling that of Arachne, which she had woven to catch every leisure hour of his, so as to leave him no time to brood over the pleasures of the Palace of the Intendant or the charms of Angelique des Meloises.

There were golden threads too in the network in which she hoped to entangle him: long rides to the neighboring seigniories, where bright eyes and laughing lips were ready to expel every shadow of care from the most dejected of men, much more from a handsome gallant like Le Gardeur de Repentigny, whose presence at any of these old manors put their fair inmates at once in holiday trim and in holiday humor; there were shorter walks through the park and domain of Tilly, where she intended to botanize and sketch, and even fish and hunt with Le Gardeur and Pierre, although, sooth to say, Amelie's share in hunting would only be to ride her sure-footed pony and look at her companions; there were visits to friends far and near, and visits in return to the Manor House, and a grand excursion of all to the lake of Tilly in boats,--they would colonize its little island for a day, set up tents, make a governor and intendant, perhaps a king and queen, and forget the world till their return home.

This elaborate scheme secured the approbation of the Lady de Tilly, who had, in truth, contributed part of it. Le Gardeur said he was a poor fly whom they were resolved to catch and pin to the wall of a chateau en Espagne, but he would enter the web without a buzz of opposition on condition that Pierre would join him. So it was all settled.

Amelie did not venture again that night to encounter the eyes of Pierre Philibert,--she needed more courage than she felt just now to do that; but in secret she blessed him, and treasured those fond looks of his in her heart, never to be forgotten any more. When she retired to her own chamber and was alone, she threw herself in passionate abandonment before the altar in her little oratory, which she had crowned with flowers to mark her gladness. She poured out her pure soul in invocations of blessings upon Pierre Philibert and upon her brother and all the house. The golden head of her rosary lingered long in her loving fingers that night, as she repeated over and over her accustomed prayers for his safety and welfare.

The sun rose gloriously next morning over the green woods and still greener meadows of Tilly. The atmosphere was soft and pure; it had been washed clean of all its impurities by a few showers in the night. Every object seemed nearer and clearer to the eye, while the delicious odor of fresh flowers filled the whole air with fragrance.

The trees, rocks, waters, and green slopes stood out with marvellous precision of outline, as if cut with a keen knife. No fringe of haze surrounded them, as in a drought or as in the evening when the air is filled with the shimmering of the day dust which follows the sun's chariot in his course round the world.

Every object, great and small, seemed magnified to welcome Pierre Philibert, who was up betimes this morning and out in the pure air viewing the old familiar scenes.

With what delight he recognized each favorite spot! There was the cluster of trees which crowned a promontory overlooking the St. Lawrence where he and Le Gardeur had stormed the eagle's nest. In that sweep of forest the deer used to browse and the fawns crouch in the long ferns.

Upon yonder breezy hill they used to sit and count the sails turning alternately bright and dark as the vessels tacked up the broad river.

There was a stretch of green lawn, still green as it was in his memory--how everlasting are God's colors! There he had taught Amelie to ride, and, holding fast, ran by her side, keeping pace with her flying Indian pony. How beautiful and fresh the picture of her remained in his memory!--the soft white dress she wore, her black hair streaming over her shoulders, her dark eyes flashing delight, her merry laugh rivalling the trill of the blackbird which flew over their heads chattering for very joy. Before him lay the pretty brook with its rustic bridge reflecting itself in the clear water as in a mirror. That path along the bank led down to the willows where the big mossy stones lay in the stream and the silvery salmon and speckled trout lay fanning the water gently with their fins as they contemplated their shadows on the smooth, sandy bottom.

Pierre Philibert sat down on a stone by the side of the brook and watched the shoals of minnows move about in little battalions, wheeling like soldiers to the right or left at a wave of the hand. But his thoughts were running in a circle of questions and enigmas for which he found neither end nor answer.

For the hundredth time Pierre proposed to himself the tormenting enigma, harder, he thought, to solve than any problem of mathematics,--for it was the riddle of his life: "What thoughts are truly in the heart of Amelie de Repentigny respecting me? Does she recollect me only as her brother's companion, who may possibly have some claim upon her friendship, but none upon her love?" His imagination pictured every look she had given him since his return. Not all! Oh, Pierre Philibert! the looks you would have given worlds to catch, you were unconscious of!

Every word she had spoken, the soft inflection of every syllable of her silvery voice lingered in his ear. He had caught meanings where perhaps no meaning was, and missed the key to others which he knew were there--never, perhaps, to be revealed to him. But although he questioned in the name of love, and found many divine echoes in her words, imperceptible to every ear but his own, he could not wholly solve the riddle of his life. Still he hoped.

"If love creates love, as some say it does," thought he, "Amelie de Repentigny cannot be indifferent to a passion which governs every impulse of my being! But is there any especial merit in loving her whom all the world cannot help admiring equally with myself? I am presumptuous to think so!--and more presumptuous still to expect, after so many years of separation and forgetfulness, that her heart, so loving and so sympathetic, has not already bestowed its affection upon some one more fortunate than me."

While Pierre tormented himself with these sharp thorns of doubt,--and of hopes painful as doubts,--little did he think what a brave, loving spirit was hid under the silken vesture of Amelie de Repentigny, and how hard was her struggle to conceal from his eyes those tender regards, which, with over-delicacy, she accounted censurable because they were wholly spontaneous.

He little thought how entirely his image had filled her heart during those years when she dreamed of him in the quiet cloister, living in a world of bright imaginings of her own; how she had prayed for his safety and welfare as she would have prayed for the soul of one dead,--never thinking, or even hoping, to see him again.

Pierre had become to her as one of the disembodied saints or angels whose pictures looked down from the wall of the Convent chapel--the bright angel of the Annunciation or the youthful Baptist proclaiming the way of the Lord. Now that Pierre Philibert was alive in the flesh,--a man, beautiful, brave, honorable, and worthy of any woman's love,--Amelie was frightened. She had not looked for that, and yet it had come upon her. And, although trembling, she was glad and proud to find she had been remembered by the brave youth, who recognized in the perfect woman the girl he had so ardently loved as a boy.

Did he love her still? Woman's heart is quicker to apprehend all possibilities than man's. She had caught a look once or twice in the eyes of Pierre Philibert which thrilled the inmost fibres of her being; she had detected his ardent admiration. Was she offended? Far from it!

And although her cheek had flushed deeply red, and her pulses throbbed hard at the sudden consciousness that Pierre Philibert admired, nay, more,--she could not conceal it from herself,--she knew that night that he loved her! She would not have foregone that moment of revelation for all that the world had to offer.

She would gladly at that moment of discovery have fled to her own apartment and cried for joy, but she dared not; she trembled lest his eyes, if she looked up, should discover the secret of her own. She had an overpowering consciousness that she stood upon the brink of her fate; that ere long that look of his would be followed by words--blessed, hoped-for words, from the lips of Pierre Philibert! words which would be the pledge and assurance to her of that love which was hereafter to be the joy--it might be the despair, but in any case the all in all of her life forever.

Amelie had not yet realized the truth that love is the strength, not the weakness of woman; and that the boldness of the man is rank cowardice in comparison with the bravery she is capable of, and the sacrifices she will make for the sake of the man who has won her heart.

God locks up in a golden casket of modesty the yearnings of a woman's heart; but when the hand in which he has placed the key that opens it calls forth her glorified affections, they come out like the strong angels, and hold back the winds that blow from the four corners of the earth that they may not hurt the man whose forehead is sealed with the kiss of her acknowledged love.

CHAPTER XXVIII. A DAY AT THE MANOR HOUSE.

Amelie, after a night of wakefulness and wrestling with a tumult of new thoughts and emotions,--no longer dreams, but realities of life,--dressed herself in a light morning costume, which, simple as it was, bore the touch of her graceful hand and perfect taste. With a broad-brimmed straw hat set upon her dark tresses, which were knotted with careless care in a blue ribbon, she descended the steps of the Manor House. There was a deep bloom upon her cheeks, and her eyes looked like fountains of light and gladness, running over to bless all beholders.

She inquired of Felix Beaudoin of her brother. The old majordomo, with a significant look, informed her that Monsieur Le Gardeur had just ordered his horse to ride to the village. He had first called for a decanter of Cognac, and when it was brought to him he suddenly thrust it back and would not taste it. "He would not drink even Jove's nectar in the Manor House, he said; but would go down to the village, where Satan mixed the drink for thirsty souls like his! Poor Le Gardeur!" continued Felix, "you must not let him go to the village this morning, mademoiselle!"

Amelie was startled at this information. She hastened at once to seek her brother, whom she found walking impatiently in the garden, slashing the heads off the poppies and dahlias within reach of his riding-whip.

He was equipped for a ride, and waited the coming of the groom with his horse.

Amelie ran up, and clasping his arms with both hands as she looked up in his face with a smile, exclaimed, "Do not go to the village yet, Le Gardeur! Wait for us!"

"Not go to the village yet, Amelie?" replied he; "why not? I shall return for breakfast, although I have no appetite. I thought a ride to the village would give me one."

"Wait until after breakfast, brother, when we will all go with you to meet our friends who come this morning to Tilly,--our cousin Heloise de Lotbiniere is coming to see you and Pierre Philibert; you must be there to welcome her,--gallants are too scarce to allow her to spare the handsomest of all, my own brother!"

Amelie divined truly from Le Gardeur's restless eyes and haggard look that a fierce conflict was going on in his breast between duty and desire,--whether he should remain at home, or go to the village to plunge again into the sea of dissipation out of which he had just been drawn to land half-drowned and utterly desperate.

Amelie resolved not to leave his side, but to cleave to him, and inch by inch to fight the demons which possessed him until she got the victory.

Le Gardeur looked fondly in the face of Amelie. He read her thoughts, and was very conscious why she wished him not to go to the village. His feelings gave way before her love and tenderness. He suddenly embraced her and kissed her cheeks, while the tears stood welling in his eyes. "I am not worthy of you, Amelie," said he; "so much sisterly care is lost on me!"

"Oh, say not that, brother," replied she, kissing him fondly in return.

"I would give my life to save you, O my brother!"

Amelie was greatly moved, and for a time unable to speak further; she laid her head on his shoulder, and sobbed audibly. Her love gained the victory where remonstrance and opposition would have lost it.

"You have won the day, Amelie!" said he; "I will not go to the village except with you. You are the best and truest girl in all Christendom!

Why is there no other like you? If there were, this curse had not come upon me, nor this trial upon you, Amelie! You are my good angel, and I will try, oh, so faithfully try, to be guided by you! If you fail, you will at least have done all and more than your duty towards your erring brother."

"Le Brun!" cried he to the groom who had brought his horse, and to whom he threw the whip which had made such havoc among the flowers, "lead Black Caesar to the stable again! and hark you! when I bid you bring him out in the early morning another time, lead him to me unbridled and unsaddled, with only a halter on his head, that I may ride as a clown, not as a gentleman!"

Le Brun stared at this speech, and finally regarded it as a capital joke, or else, as he whispered to his fellow-grooms in the stable, he believed his young master had gone mad.

"Pierre Philibert," continued Amelie, "is down at the salmon pool. Let us join him, Le Gardeur, and bid him good morning once more at Tilly."

Amelie, overjoyed at her victory, tripped gaily by the side of her brother, and presently two friendly hands, the hands of Pierre Philibert, were extended to greet her and Le Gardeur.

The hand of Amelie was retained for a moment in that of Pierre Philibert, sending the blood to her cheeks. There is a magnetic touch in loving fingers which is never mistaken, though their contact be but for a second of time: it anticipates the strong grasp of love which will ere long embrace body and soul in adamantine chains of a union not to be broken even by death.

If Pierre Philibert retained the hand of Amelie for one second longer than mere friendship required of him, no one perceived it but God and themselves. Pierre felt it like a revelation--the hand of Amelie yielding timidly, but not unwillingly, to his manly grasp. He looked in her face. Her eyes were averted, and she withdrew her hand quietly but gently, as not upbraiding him.

That moment of time flashed a new influence upon both their lives: it was the silent recognition that each was henceforth conscious of the special regard of the other.

There are moments which contain the whole quintessence of our lives,--our loves, our hopes, our failures, in one concentrated drop of happiness or misery. We look behind us and see that our whole past has led up to that infinitesimal fraction of time which is the consummation of the past in the present, the end of the old and the beginning of the new. We look forward from the vantage ground of the present, and the world of a new revelation lies before us.

Pierre Philibert was conscious from that moment that Amelie de Repentigny was not indifferent to him,--nay, he had a ground of hope that in time she would listen to his pleadings, and at last bestow on him the gift of her priceless love.

His hopes were sure hopes, although he did not dare to give himself the sweet assurance of it, nor did Amelie herself as yet suspect how far her heart was irrevocably wedded to Pierre Philibert.

Deep as was the impression of that moment upon both of them, neither Philibert nor Amelie yielded to its influence more than to lapse into a momentary silence, which was relieved by Le Gardeur, who, suspecting not the cause,--nay, thinking it was on his account that his companions were so unaccountably grave and still, kindly endeavored to force the conversation upon a number of interesting topics, and directed the attention of Philibert to various points of the landscape which suggested reminiscences of his former visits to Tilly.

The equilibrium of conversation was restored, and the three, sitting down on a long, flat stone, a boulder which had dropped millions of years before out of an iceberg as it sailed slowly over the glacial ocean which then covered the place of New France, commenced to talk over Amelie's programme of the previous night, the amusements she had planned for the week, the friends in all quarters they were to visit, and the friends from all quarters they were to receive at the Manor House.