“Of course, Paul, I _know_ you did not do it. I _know_ you, as _she_ would, too, if she loved you,” he cried, in a voice made high and thin by excitement. “I will tell them you are true. But—where is Yvonne?” And he pushed past me to the gate, where he paused irresolutely. “Don’t tell me she is not with you!” I cried. “She ran out a minute ago, not telling us what she was going to do,” he answered. “But what for? What made her? She must have had some reason! What was it?” I demanded, becoming cold and stern as I noted how his nerves were shaken. He collected himself with a visible effort, and then looked at me with a kind of slow pity. “I had but now come in,” said he, “and thoughtlessly I told Madame a word just caught in the crowd. You know that evil savage, Etienne le Bâtard. Or you don’t, I see; but he’s the red right-hand of La Garne, and it was he executed yonder outrage. As he was leading his cut-throats away in haste, plainly upon another malignant enterprise, I heard him tell one of my parishioners what he would do. The man is suspected of a leaning to the English; and the savage said to him with significance: “I go now to Kenneticook, to the yellow-haired English Anderson. Neither he nor his house will see another sun. “I had thought perhaps you were right, Paul, and that Yvonne had promised herself to the Englishman more in esteem than love; but she cried out, with a piteous, shaken voice, that he must be warned—that some one _must_ go to him and save him. With that she rushed from the house, and we have not seen her since. But stay—what have _you_ said or done to her, Paul? Now that I see her face again, I see remorse in it. What have you done to her?” I made no answer to this sharp question, it being irrelevant and my haste urgent. But I demanded: “Where could she go for help?” “I don’t know,” he answered, “unless, perhaps, to the landing.” “The tide is pretty low,” said I, pondering, “but the wind serves well enough for the Piziquid mouth. Where do you suppose the savages left their canoes?” “Oh,” said he positively, “well up on the Piziquid shore, without doubt. They came over on the upper trail, and they must be now hurrying back the same way. They cannot get up the Kenneticook, by that route, till a little before dawn.” “I have time, then!” I exclaimed, and rushed away. “Where are you going? Paul! Paul! What will you do?” he cried after me. “I will save him!” I shouted as I went. “Come you down to the landing, the Gaspereau wharf, and get Yvonne if she’s there.” Glancing back, I saw that he followed me.