Page:Gilbert Parker--The Lane that had No Turning.djvu/56

40 deep of summer! She shivered from head to foot, and yet all day the harvest sun had drenched the room in its heat.

Yet her blood might run warm again, her cold cheeks might regain their colour, her heart beat quietly if this paper were no more! The thought made her shrink away from herself, as it were, yet she caught up the candle and lighted it.

For Louis. For Louis, though she would rather have died than do it for herself. To save to Louis what was, to his imagination, the one claim he had upon her respect and the world's. After all, how little was it in value or in dignity! How little she cared for it! One year of her voice could earn two such Seigneuries as this. And the honour—save that it was Pontiac—it was naught to her. In all her life she had never done or said a dishonourable thing. She had never lied, she had never deceived, she had never done aught that might not have been written down and published to all the world. Yet here, all at once, she was faced with a vast temptation, to do a deed, the penalty of which was an indelible shame.

What injury would it do to George Fournel! He was used now to his disappointment; he was rich; he had no claims upon Pontiac; there was no one but himself to whom it mattered, this little Seigneury. What he did not know did not exist, so far as himself was concerned. How easily could it all be made right some day! She felt as though she were suffocating, and she opened the window a little very softly. Then she lit the candle tremblingly, watched the flame gather strength, and opened out the will. As she did so, however, the smell of a buckwheat field, which is as honey, came stealing through the room, and all