To sue for simple justice in the restoration of his inheritance would be useless. It would involve a life-long litigation. The Bourgeois preferred buying it back at whatever price, so that he could make a gift of it at once to his son, and he had already instructed his bankers in Paris to pay the price asked by its owner and forward to him the deeds, which he was ambitious to present to Pierre and Amelie on the day of their marriage.
The Bourgeois at last looked up from his reverie. Dame Rochelle closed her book, waiting for her master's commands.
"Has Pierre returned, dame?" asked he.
"No, master; he bade me say he was going to accompany Mademoiselle Amelie to Lorette."
"Ah! Amelie had a vow to Our Lady of St. Foye, and Pierre, I warrant, desired to pay half the debt! What think you, dame, of your godson? Is he not promising?" The Bourgeois laughed quietly, as was his wont sometimes.
Dame Rochelle sat a shade more upright in her chair. "Pierre is worthy of Amelie and Amelie of him," replied she, gravely; "never were two out of heaven more fitly matched. If they make vows to the Lady of St. Foye they will pay them as religiously as if they had made them to the Most High, to whom we are commanded to pay our vows!"
"Well, Dame, some turn to the east and some to the west to pay their vows, but the holiest shrine is where true love is, and there alone the oracle speaks in response to young hearts. Amelie, sweet, modest flower that she is, pays her vows to Our Lady of St. Foye, Pierre his to Amelie! I will be bound, dame, there is no saint in the calendar so holy in his eyes as herself!"
"Nor deserves to be, master! Theirs is no ordinary affection. If love be the fulfilling of the law, all law is fulfilled in these two, for never did the elements of happiness mingle more sweetly in the soul of a man and a woman than in Pierre and Amelie!"
"It will restore your youth, dame, to live with Pierre and Amelie," replied the Bourgeois. "Amelie insists on it, not because of Pierre, she says, but for your own sake. She was moved to tears one day, dame, when she made me relate your story."
Dame Rochelle put on her spectacles to cover her eyes, which were fast filling, as she glanced down on the black robe she wore, remembering for whom she wore it.
"Thanks, master. It would be a blessed thing to end the remaining days of my mourning in the house of Pierre and Amelie, but my quiet mood suits better the house of my master, who has also had his heart saddened by a long, long day of darkness and regret."
"Yes, dame, but a bright sunset, I trust, awaits it now. The descending shadow of the dial goes back a pace on the fortunes of my house! I hope to welcome my few remaining years with a gayer aspect and a lighter heart than I have felt since we were driven from France. What would you say to see us all reunited once more in our old Norman home?"
The dame gave a great start, and clasped her thin hands.
"What would I say, master? Oh, to return to France, and be buried in the green valley of the Cote d'Or by the side of him, were next to rising in the resurrection of the just at the last day."
The Bourgeois knew well whom she meant by "him." He reverenced her feeling, but continued the topic of a return to France.
"Well, dame, I will do for Pierre what I would not do for myself. I shall repurchase the old chateau, and use every influence at my command to prevail on the King to restore to Pierre the honors of his ancestors. Will not that be a glorious end to the career of the Bourgeois Philibert?"
"Yes, master, but it may not end there for you. I hear from my quiet window many things spoken in the street below. Men love you so, and need you so, that they will not spare any supplication to bid you stay in the Colony; and you will stay and die where you have lived so many years, under the shadow of the Golden Dog. Some men hate you, too, because you love justice and stand up for the right.
I have a request to make, dear master."
"What is that, dame?" asked he kindly, prepared to grant any request of hers.
"Do not go to the market to-morrow," replied she earnestly.
The Bourgeois glanced sharply at the dame, who continued to ply her needles. Her eyes were half closed in a semi-trance, their lids trembling with nervous excitement. One of her moods, rare of late, was upon her, and she continued:
"Oh, my dear master! you will never go to France; but Pierre shall inherit the honors of the house of Philibert!"
The Bourgeois looked up contentedly. He respected, without putting entire faith in Dame Rochelle's inspirations. "I shall be resigned," he said, "not to see France again, if the King's Majesty makes it a condition that he restore to Pierre the dignity, while I give him back the domain of his fathers."
Dame Rochelle clasped her hands hard together and sighed. She spake not, but her lips moved in prayer as if deprecating some danger, or combating some presentiment of evil.
The Bourgeois watched her narrowly. Her moods of devout contemplation sometimes perplexed his clear worldly wisdom. He could scarcely believe that her intuitions were other than the natural result of a wonderfully sensitive and apprehensive nature; still, in his experience he had found that her fancies, if not supernatural, were not unworthy of regard as the sublimation of reason by intellectual processes of which the possessor was unconscious.
"You again see trouble in store for me, dame," said he smiling; "but a merchant of New France setting at defiance the decrees of the Royal Intendant, an exile seeking from the King the restoration of the lordship of Philibert, may well have trouble on his hands."
"Yes, master, but as yet I only see trouble like a misty cloud which as yet has neither form nor color of its own, but only reflects red rays as of a setting sun. No voice from its midst tells me its meaning; I thank God for that. I like not to anticipate evil that may not be averted!"
"Whom does it touch, Pierre or Amelie, me, or all of us?" asked the Bourgeois.
