Naturally, I did not smile. I met his brooding, deep eyes with a look which told him much. I might, indeed, have even spoken a word of comprehension; but just then I caught sight of my cousin Marc coming from the sacristy. I hastened to greet him with hand and heart. There was so much to talk of between us two that others, understanding, left us to ourselves. He told me of his little Puritan’s grief, far away in Quebec, of her long suspense, and of how, at last, he had got word to her. “She is a woman among ten thousand, Paul,” said he. “These New Englanders are the people to breed up a wife for a French gentleman.” I assented most heartily, for I had ever liked and admired that white-skinned Prudence of his. Of my own affairs I told him some things fully, some things not at all; of my accident, my illness, my sojourning with Grûl, everything; but of my coming to the Gaspereau ford and my capture, nothing then. “There is too much hanging upon it, Marc,” said I. “It touches me too deeply. I cannot talk of it at all while we are like to be interrupted. Let us wait for quiet—when the rest are asleep.” “It is cold here at night,” said Marc, “but the women have been allowed to bring us a few quilts and blankets. You wills hare mine—the gift of the good curé. Then we can talk.” The early autumnal dark had been feebly lighted this while by a few candles; but candles were getting scarce in the stricken cottages of Grand Pré, and in Grand Pré chapel prison they were a hoarded luxury. The words “lights out” came early; and Marc and I laid ourselves in a corner of the sacristy by general consent reserved to him. A cold glimmer of stars came in by the narrow window, and I thought of them looking down on Yvonne, awake, not sleeping, I well knew. Were the astrologers right, I wondered. Good men and great had believed in the jurisdiction of the stars. I remembered a very learned astrologer in Paris, during the year I spent there, and futilely I wished I had consulted him. But at the time I had been so occupied with the present as to make small question of the future. Soon the sound of many breathings told that the prisoners were forgetting for a little their bars and walls. In a whisper, slowly, I told Marc of my coming to Grand Pré in the spring—of Yvonne’s bond to the Englishman—of the conversation at the hammock—of the fire, the scene at the boat, the saving of Anderson—and of all that had just been said and done at the ford of the Gaspereau. He heard me through, in such silence that my heart sank, fearing he, too, was against me; and I passionately craved his support. I knew the lack of it would no jot alter my purpose; but I loved him, and hungered for the warmth of the comrade heart. When he spoke, however, my fears straight fell dead.