In a little while I was at my lodgings, soldiers posted at my door and one in my room. Doltaire gone to his own quarters promising to call for me within two hours. There was little for me to do but to put in a bag the fewest necessaries, to roll up my heavy cloak, to stow safely my pipes and two goodly packets of tobacco, which were to be my chiefest solace for many a long day, and to write some letters--one to Governor Dinwiddie, one to George Washington, and one to my partner in Virginia, telling them my fresh misfortunes, and begging them to send me money, which, however useless in my captivity, would be important in my fight for life and freedom. I did not write intimately of my state, for I was not sure my letters would ever pass outside Quebec. There were only two men I could trust to do the thing. One was a fellow-countryman, Clark, a ship-carpenter, who, to save his neck and to spare his wife and child, had turned Catholic, but who hated all Frenchmen barbarously at heart, remembering two of his bairns butchered before his eyes. The other was Voban. I knew that though Voban might not act, he would not betray me. But how to reach either of them? It was clear that I must bide my chances. One other letter I wrote, brief but vital, in which I begged the sweetest girl in the world not to have uneasiness because of me; that I trusted to my star and to my innocence to convince my judges; and begging her, if she could, to send me a line at the citadel. I told her I knew well how hard it would be, for her mother and her father would not now look upon my love with favour. But I trusted all to time and Providence. I sealed my letters, put them in my pocket, and sat down to smoke and think while I waited for Doltaire. To the soldier on duty, whom I did not notice at first, I now offered a pipe and a glass of wine, which he accepted rather gruffly, but enjoyed, if I might judge by his devotion to them. By-and-bye, without any relevancy at all, he said abruptly, “If a little sooner she had come--aho!” For a moment I could not think what he meant; but soon I saw. “The palace would have been burnt if the girl in scarlet had come sooner--eh?” I asked. “She would have urged the people on?” “And Bigot burnt, too, maybe,” he answered. “Fire and death--eh?” I offered him another pipeful of tobacco. He looked doubtful, but accepted. “Aho! And that Voban, he would have had his hand in,” he growled. I began to get more light. “She was shut up at Chateau Bigot--hand of iron and lock of steel--who knows the rest! But Voban was for always,” he added presently. The thing was clear. The Scarlet Woman was Mathilde. So here was the end of Voban’s little romance--of the fine linen from Ste. Anne de Beaupre and the silver pitcher for the wedding wine. I saw, or felt, that in Voban I might find now a confederate, if I put my hard case on Bigot’s shoulders. “I can’t see why she stayed with Bigot,” I said tentatively.