Every Friday night the table was given up to the governor’s gentlemen councillors, friends, and officers.  Victor and the Chevalier were on this list, as were the vicomte and D’Herouville.  Usually these were enjoyable evenings.  Victor became famous as a raconteur, and the Chevalier lost some of his taciturnity in this friendly intercourse.  D’Herouville’s conduct was irreproachable in every sense.

One day the Chevalier entered one of the school-rooms.  In his arms he held a small white child which had sprained its weak ankle while playing on the lumber pile outside the convent of the Ursulines.  Sister Benie was quick to note how tenderly he held the sobbing child.

“Give him to me, Monsieur,” she said, her velvet eyes moist with pity.

The Chevalier placed the little boy in her arms, and he experienced a strange thrill as he noticed the manner in which she wrapt the boy to her heart.  How often Breton’s mother, his nurse, had taken him to her breast that way!  And he stood there marveling over that beautiful mystery which God had created, for the wonder of man, the woman and the child.

“I chanced to be passing and heard his cry,” he said, diffidently.

“Playing the good Samaritan?” asked a voice from the window.  The Sister and the Chevalier looked around and saw the vicomte leaning on the window-sill.  “Why was it not my happiness to tarry by that lumber-pile.  I saw the lad.’”

“Ah, it is you, Vicomte?” said the Chevalier, pleasantly.

“Yes, Chevalier.  Will you walk with me?”

Being without excuse, the Chevalier joined him, and together they proceeded toward the quarters.

Sister Benie stared after them till they had disappeared around the corner of the building.

“Chevalier,” said the vicomte, “do you remember Henri de Leviston?”

“De Leviston?” The Chevalier frowned.  “Yes; I recollect him.  Why?”

“He is here.”

“In Quebec?”

“Yes.  He came in this morning from Montreal, where he is connected with the Associates.  Was he not in your company three or four years ago?  He was dismissed, so I heard, for prying into De Guitaut’s private despatches.”

“I remember the incident.  I was the one who denounced him.  It was a disagreeable duty, but De Guitaut had put me on De Leviston’s tracks.  It was unavoidable.”

“You had best beware of him.”

“I am perfectly in health, thank you,” replied the Chevalier.

The vicomte covertly ran his eye over his companion.  It was not to be denied that the Chevalier had gained wonderfully in the fortnight.  The air, the constant labor, and the natural medicine which he inhaled in the forests, had given a nervous springiness to his step and had cleared his eyes till the whites were like china.  No; the Chevalier need have no fear of De Leviston, was the vicomte’s mental comment.

“Well, you do look proper.  The wine is all out of your system, and there is balsam in your blood.  A wonderful country!” The vicomte stopped before his door.