Page:Gilbert Parker--The Lane that had No Turning.djvu/35

Rh "They must drill somewhere, and they are honouring Pontiac," she replied gaily, but her face flushed as she bent over the flag again.

He came and stood in front of her. "I don't know what's in your mind, I don't know what you mean to do, but I do know that M'sieu' Racine is making trouble here, and out of it you'll come more hurt than anybody."

"What has Louis done?" "What has he done! He's been stirring up feeling against the British, What has he done!—Look at the silly customs he's got out of old coffins, to make us believe they're alive! Why did he ever try to marry you? Why did you ever marry him? You are the great singer of the world. He's a mad hunchback habitant Seigneur!"

She stamped her foot indignantly, but presently she ruled herself to composure and said quietly: "He is my husband. He is a brave man, with foolish dreams." Then with a sudden burst of tender feeling: "Oh, father, father, can't you see I loved him—that is why I married him. You ask me what am I going to do? I am going to give the rest of my life to him. I am going to stay with him, and be to him all that he may never have in this world, never—never. I am going to be to him what my mother was to you, a slave to the end—a slave who loved you, and who gave you a daughter who will do the same for her husband"

"No matter what he does or is—eh?"

"No matter what he is!"

Lajeunesse gasped. "You will give up singing! Not sing again before kings and Courts, and not earn ten thousand dollars a month—more than I've earned in twenty years! You don't mean that, Mad'linette!"