Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France) -- Fiction; United States -- History -- French and Indian War, 1754-1763 -- Fiction
"I have work in the cathedral," continued the poor woman, "and I
shall go to it this morning as I have always gone. There is a
little unused closet in a gallery where you may hide, and still see
all that happens. It is your last look at the lady, and I will give
it to you, as you gave me to know of my Jean."
"My last look?" I asked eagerly.
"She goes into the nunnery to-morrow, they say," was the reply.
"Her marriage is to be set aside by the bishop to-day--in the
cathedral. This is her last night to live as such as I--but no,
she will be happier so."
"Madame," said I, "I am a heretic, but I listened when your
husband said, 'Mon grand homme de Calvaire, bon soir!' Was the
cross less a cross because a heretic put it to his lips? Is a
marriage less a marriage because a heretic is the husband? Madame,
you loved your Jean; if he were living now, what would you do to
keep him. Think, madame, is not love more than all?"
She turned to the dead body. "Mon petit Jean!" she
murmured, but made no reply to me, and for many minutes the room
was silent. At last she turned, and said, "You must come at once,
for soon the priests will be at the church. A little later I will
bring you some breakfast, and you must not stir from there till I
come to fetch you--no."
"I wish to see Voban," said I.
She thought a moment. "I will try to fetch him to you by-and-bye,"
she said. She did not speak further, but finished the sentence by
pointing to the body.
Presently, hearing footsteps, she drew me into another little
room. "It is the grandfather," she said. "He has forgotten you
already, and he must not see you again."
We saw the old man hobble into the room we had left, carrying in
one arm Jean's coat and hat. He stood still, and nodded at the body
and mumbled to himself; then he went over and touched the hands and
forehead, nodding wisely; after which he came to his armchair, and,
sitting down, spread the coat over his knees, put the cap on it,
and gossiped with himself:
"In eild our idle fancies all return,
The mind's eye cradled by the open grave."
A moment later, the woman passed from the rear of the house to
the vestry door of the cathedral. After a minute, seeing no one
near, I followed, came to the front door, entered, and passed up a
side aisle towards the choir. There was no one to be seen, but soon
the woman came out of the vestry and beckoned to me nervously. I
followed her quick movements, and was soon in a narrow stairway,
coming, after fifty steps or so, to a sort of cloister, from which
we went into a little cubiculum, or cell, with a wooden lattice
door which opened on a small gallery. Through the lattices the
nave amid choir could be viewed distinctly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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