Massawippa looked steadily at Claire, searching her for cowardice or treachery. The Laval-Montmorency smiled back. “Twenty-four hours, Massawippa, I lay on the chapel pavement, praying the Virgin to send me guide or open some way for me to follow the French expedition up that Ottawa River. You threw yourself beside me and answered my prayer by your own vow. We are bound to the same destination.” The half-breed girl looked with actual solicitude at the tender white beauty of her fellow-plotter. “Madame, it will be very hard for you. You and I could not, in a boat, pass the rapids of Ste. Anne at the head of this island; they test the skill of our best Huron paddlers.” “Can we then go by land?” “We shall have to cross one arm of the Ottawa to the mainland. Montreal is on an island, madame. Two or three leagues of travel would bring us to that shore near the mouth of the Ottawa.” Sister Macé, unobtrusive as dawn, opened the door and stole softly in from matins, breaking up the conference. She called Massawippa to learn how pallets must be aired and cells made tidy. The half-breed girl saw all this care with contempt, having for years cast out of mind her bed of leaves and blankets as soon as she arose from it. Claire went with unpromising novice and easy teacher to breakfast in the refectory, and afterwards by herself to confession--a confession with its mental reservation as to her plans; but the rite was one which her religion imposed upon her under the circumstances. She had been even less candid towards the nuns in allowing them to receive and address her as Dollard’s sister. The prostration of grief and reaction of intense resolve benumbed her, indeed, to externals. But in that day of pious deception, when the churchmen themselves were full of evasive methods, a daughter of conventual training may have been less sensitive to false appearances than women of Claire’s high nature bred in a later age. She saw no more of Massawippa until nightfall, but lay in the cell assigned to her, resting with shut eyes, and allowing no thought to wander to the men paddling towards that lonely river. All day the season grew; shower chased sun and sun dried shower, and in the afternoon Jouaneaux told Sister Brésoles that he had weeded the garden of a growth which would surprise her. At dusk, however, he brought the usual small log up to the parlor, and with it news which exceeded his tale of weeding. Sister Brésoles was folding her tired hands in meditation there, and Massawippa, sullen and lofty from her first day’s probation, curled on the floor in a corner full of shadows. “Honored Superior,” said Jouaneaux after placing his log, “who, say’st thou, did boldly walk up to the governor to-day?” “Perhaps yourself, Jouaneaux. You were ever bold enough.”