Doltaire paused, with a pinch of snuff at his nose, and replied lazily, “I did not say ‘Who called you VOBAN?’ Voban, but who called you here, Voban?” I spoke up testily then of purpose: “What would you have, monsieur? The citadel has better butchers than barbers. I sent for him.” He shrugged his shoulders and came over to Voban. “Turn round, my Voban,” he said. “Voban--and such a figure! a knee, a back like that!” Then, while my heart stood still, he put forth a finger and touched the barber on the chest. If he should touch the letters! I was ready to seize them--but would that save them? Twice, thrice, the finger prodded Voban’s breast, as if to add an emphasis to his words. “In Quebec you are misplaced, Monsieur le Voban. Once a wasp got into a honeycomb and died.” I knew he was hinting at the barber’s resentment of the poor Mathilde’s fate. Something strange and devilish leapt into the man’s eyes, and he broke out bitterly, “A honey-bee got into a nest of wasps--and died.” I thought of the Scarlet Woman on the hill. Voban looked for a moment as if he might do some wild thing. His spirit, his devilry, pleased Doltaire, and he laughed. “Who would have thought our Voban had such wit? The trade of barber is double-edged. Razors should be in fashion at Versailles.” Then he sat down, while Voban made a pretty show of touching off my person. A few minutes passed so, in which the pealing of bells, the shouting of the people, the beating of drums, and the calling of bugles came to us clearly. A half hour afterwards, on our way to the Intendant’s palace, we heard the Benedictus chanted in the Church of the Recollets as we passed--hundreds kneeling outside, and responding to the chant sung within: “That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hands of all that hate us.” At the corner of a building which we passed, a little away from the crowd, I saw a solitary cloaked figure. The words of the chant, following us, I could hear distinctly: “That we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve Him without fear.” And then, from the shadowed corner came in a high, melancholy voice the words: “To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Looking closer, I saw it was Mathilde. Doltaire smiled as I turned and begged a moment’s time to speak to her. “To pray with the lost angel and sup with the Intendant, all in one night--a liberal taste, monsieur; but who shall stay the good Samaritan!” They stood a little distance away, and I went over to her and said, “Mademoiselle--Mathilde, do you not know me?” Her abstracted eye fired up, as there ran to her brain some little sprite out of the House of Memory and told her who I was. “There were two lovers in the world,” she said: “the Mother of God forgot them, and the devil came. I am the Scarlet Woman,” she went on; “I made this red robe from the curtains of Hell--”