“Le Veilleur,” I said to myself. “The Watcher. Little strange is it if simple souls ascribe to you sorcery and power.” Then I remembered the snatch of doggerel which the old dame had muttered over it as she gave it to me. _While this you wear what most you fear will never come to pass._ Curious it seemed to me that it should have stuck in my mind, though so little heeded at the time. _What most you fear._ What was it most I feared? Surely, that Yvonne should go to another. Then that, at least, should not befall while I lived, if there were force in witchcraft; for I would wear the “Watcher” till I died. But here again my delusive little satisfaction had but a breath long to live. For indeed what most I feared was something, alas! quite different. What most I feared was calamity, evil, anguish, for Yvonne. Then, clearly, if her happiness required her to be the wife of George Anderson, I could not hinder it. Could not? Nay, “_would_ not!” I cried aloud; and thereupon, no longer able to drug myself with auguries, and no longer able to be dumb under the misery of my own soul, I sprang upright, strained my arms above my head, and prayed a selfish prayer: “God, give her joy, but through me, through me!” Then I flung myself down again, and set my teeth, and turned my face to the wall. Thus I lay as one dead; and so it fell that when the door of the cave was darkened, and steps came to my bed, I did not look up. Chapter XX But Mad Nor-nor-west The steps came close to me, moved away, and were still. A sick man’s curiosity soon works, and here, surely, were incalculable matters for me to find out. I turned over suddenly. It was a fantastic figure that faced me, sitting on a billet of wood not far from the door. Withered herbs were in the high, peaked cap. The black-and-yellow mantle was drawn forward to cover the folded arms. The steely eyes were at my inmost thought. There is no doubt I was still a sick man. I was unspeakably disappointed. Looking back upon it now, I verily believe that I expected to see Yvonne, as in a fairy tale. “Why did you come in,” I asked peevishly, twisting under those eyes, “without proclaiming— “Woe, woe to Acadie the Fair, for the hour of her desolation cometh?” “It has come,” said he quietly. I sat up as if a spring had moved me. My eyes alone questioned. “Beauséjour has fallen. France is driven back on Louisbourg. The men of Acadie are in chains. The women await what fate they know not. Their homes await the flame.” Here was no madman speaking. “And—Yvonne?” I whispered. “They all are safe, under shelter of the governor—and of Anderson,” he added icily. I had no more words for a moment. Then I asked—“And the Black Abbé?” His sane calm disappeared. His face worked; his hands came out from under his cloak, darting like serpents; his eyes veered like pale flame. As suddenly he was calm again.