“A convent, Anne?  Oh, if you will.  But why Canada?  You are mad to think of it.  You are but eighteen.  You have not even known what love is yet.”

“Have you?”

There was a laugh.  It was light-hearted.  It was a sign that the sadness and weariness which weighed upon the voice were ephemeral.

“That is no answer.”

“Anne, have I had occasion to fall in love with any man when I know man so well?  You make me laugh!  Not one of them is worthy a sigh.  To make fools of them; what a pastime!”

“Take care that one does not make a fool of you, Gabrielle.”

“Ah, he would be worth loving!”

“But what are you going to do with the property?”

“Mazarin has already posted the seals upon it.”

“Confiscated?”

“About to be.  That is why I fled to Rouen.  My mother warned me that the cardinal had found certain documents which proved that a conspiracy was forming at the hotel.  Monsieur’s name was the only one he could find.  His Eminence thought that by making a prisoner of me he might force me to disclose the names of those most intimate with monsieur.  He is searching France for me, Anne; and you know how well he searches when he sets about it.  Will he find me?  I think not.  His arm can not reach very far into Spain.  How lucky it was that I should meet you in Rouen!  I was wondering where in the world I should go.  And I shall live peacefully in that little red chateau of yours.  Oh! if you knew what it is to be free!  The odious life I have lived!  He used to bring his actress into the dining-hall.  Pah! the paint was so thick on her face that she might have been a negress for all you could tell what her color was.  And he left her a house near the forest park and seven thousand livres beside.  Free!” She drew in deep breaths of briny air.

“Gabrielle, you are a mystery to me.  Four years out of convent, and not a lover; I mean one upon whom you might bestow love.  And that handsome Vicomte d’Halluys?”

“Pouf!  I would not throw him yesterday’s rose.”

“And Monsieur de Saumaise?”

“Well, yes; he is a gallant fellow.  And I fear that I have brought trouble into his household.  But love him?  As we love our brothers.  The pulse never bounds, the color never comes and goes, the tongue is never motionless nor the voice silenced in the presence of a brother.  My love for Victor is friendship without envy, distrust, or self-interest.  He came upon my sadness and shadow as a rainbow comes on the heels of a storm.  But love him with the heart’s love, the love which a woman gives to one man and only once?”

“Poor Victor!” said Anne.

“Oh, do not worry about Victor.  He is a poet.  One of their prerogatives is to fall in love every third moon.  But the poor boy!  Anne, I have endangered his head, and quite innocently, too.  I knew not what was going on till too late.”