At last he reached the street indicated by his informant. He readily recognized, by its location and the great garden in whose midst it was set, the St. Valier residence. Through the half-open gate in the wall, he saw a light in the two windows at one side of the wide front door; and the momentary sound of confused voices told him that a numerous a.s.semblage was within. He turned into the little street that ran by the long side wall of the garden. Presently he pa.s.sed a smaller gate, which also stood open and which led to the rear of the grounds. Just across the street from this gate, there was a crowd looking excitedly in through the open door of a narrow one-story house, in whose lighted window appeared the inscription, "C. Frappeur, Vins."
"The wine shop," thought d.i.c.k, and, as he ran across the street towards the crowd, he asked himself how he should go about transacting his business with Mere Frappeur in the presence of so many people and in the brief time before the arrival of the troops on his track. He edged into the crowd and elbowed his way towards the door, but so great was the curiosity of the people to see what was within, that he had considerable strife to enter the shop. The crowd resented his forcible pa.s.sage, and jabbered noisily in French. The throng in the shop was as great as that without. d.i.c.k laboriously pushed his way to the front. "What the devil are you doing?" quoth the first English voice that d.i.c.k had heard here,--that of a burly subaltern of militia.
"I must see Mere Frappeur," cried d.i.c.k.
"See her, then," replied the subaltern, shoving d.i.c.k forward, and pointing to a bench, on which she lay,--a priest at her head, a surgeon at her feet. Mere Frappeur was dead from the accidental discharge of a militia captain"s pistol, whose owner had been getting drunk in her wine shop.
It took d.i.c.k a few seconds to comprehend the truth and to consider what next to do. He turned and struggled out of the shop and through the crowd in the street. As he came finally free of contact, he glanced towards Palace Street, and saw the soldiers with the lantern, coming around the corner of the St. Valier garden. He dashed immediately through the gate in the side wall, crossed an open s.p.a.ce between snow-covered evergreens, and bounded up a half dozen steps to the rear porch of the St. Valier mansion. From this porch a large door led into the house. d.i.c.k boldly gave four quick, loud knocks. As the lantern"s light appeared at the gateway in the side wall, the door of the house gaped wide, and d.i.c.k stepped at once into a dim, s.p.a.cious hallway, which led to several rooms and a staircase. While the servant closed the way behind d.i.c.k, and looked inquiringly at him, a door near the farther end of the hallway opened, admitting from a brilliant parlor a noise of merry conversation, and then a woman, who stopped in the centre of the hall, and looked at d.i.c.k with the surprise due to his sudden intrusion.
It was Catherine de St. Valier.
CHAPTER IX.
THE INCIDENTS OF A SNOWY NIGHT.
There was a moment"s pause, while d.i.c.k hastily tore open the silken bag in his queue and took therefrom the miniature. Then he advanced to her, bowing low, his hunting-cap in one hand, the portrait held out in the other. She glanced at the miniature curiously, then uttered a low exclamation of pleasure, her face suddenly a.s.suming a faint but joyous smile, and took the portrait, her fingers touching his as she did so.
"When I said I would get it back for you, in New Jersey," quoth d.i.c.k, while she looked affectionately at the miniature, "I didn"t think to take so long a time."
She now looked from the portrait to him. "Then you are the young gentleman who left the stage-coach, to go after the robbers?" she said, in a tone showing that she had not recognized him at first.
d.i.c.k bowed. "I would have returned it to you in New York, but--something hindered me." In contemplating the fine lines of her face, and the dark l.u.s.tre of her eyes, d.i.c.k heeded not the possibility that his seekers might even now be on the porch.
"How can I thank you, sir?" she said, her look and tone having, from the circ.u.mstances, a tenderness such as she had not before evinced to any man. Perhaps this very exception in d.i.c.k"s favor, though due to the occasion, separated him at once and forever in her mind from all other men, and made it natural that he, on whom she had scarcely even looked, should acquire in an instant a first place in her thoughts.
d.i.c.k had read enough to be able to make such fine speeches as were seriously affected and seriously taken in those days. He answered:
"By permitting me to worship you."
She looked at him a moment, at loss for a reply, but not disapprovingly.
Before she could speak, there came a loud pounding at the rear door. The old servant, who had locked it after d.i.c.k"s entrance, now returned to it to open it again.
"I think that is a party of troops in search of me," said d.i.c.k, quietly, to Catherine. "I came to Quebec on a secret mission for the United Colonies, and I have been discovered."
"_Mon Dieu!_" exclaimed Catherine, suddenly showing deep concern. "Don"t open the door, Antoine! Do you mean, sir," turning to d.i.c.k, "that, if you were caught, you would be--"
"Hanged, probably," said d.i.c.k, seeing out of the corner of his eye that the servant had stepped aside from the door without unlocking it.
The knock was repeated, more loudly. Catherine looked distressed and perplexed.
"They will be let in, eventually," she said, in a whisper, "for my uncle will hear them, and come to see what is the matter. You must hide till they go!"
"They will search the house," replied d.i.c.k.
She stood thinking, for a few seconds. "There is one room they shall not enter," she said. "Come!"
She went swiftly up the wide staircase, d.i.c.k following at her elbow. At the first landing, which was visible from the front part of the hall, she pushed back a door, whereupon d.i.c.k, obeying her look, stepped into a chamber that had a window at the farther end, as could be known by the faint whiteness there, and by the sound of snowflakes pelting the panes.
d.i.c.k stopped at the threshold to say, "But the servant?"
"He is faithful to me," she whispered from the landing. At that moment the knocking again sounded, this time with angry violence. There came from the parlor a young gentleman whom d.i.c.k, looking through the chamber doorway and down the first flight of stairs, recognized as Catherine"s brother, and who said to the servant:
"What is that knocking, Antoine? My uncle wonders why you don"t go to the door."
"I have been busy elsewhere, Monsieur Gerard," said the old servant; and then he could be heard turning the lock.
A moment later there came the sound of men rushing in, and then the voice of Lieutenant Blagdon, saying, loudly and angrily:
"What the devil has come over this house, Gerard, that it opens so easily to rebel spies, and stays closed all night against the King"s troops?"
Before the astonished Gerard could reply, another gentleman appeared from the parlor, attracted by the noisy arrival of Blagdon and the troops. He appeared to be about sixty, but he carried his tall figure stiffly erect, and his eyes were bright and keen. He held a hand of playing cards, and his face still wore a smile, which was rather that of heartless gaiety than of kindly merriment. Behind him, in the doorway, appeared other gentlemen and a few ladies, these last standing on their toes to see what was the disturbance.
"What is going on, Lieutenant Blagdon?" demanded the old gentleman.
"A very remarkable thing, Monsieur de St. Valier," replied Blagdon. "A rebel spy, who was discovered at Colonel Maclean"s quarters, seems to have found a refuge in your house."
"What!" cried the old gentleman, whom d.i.c.k now understood to be Catherine"s uncle. "My house shelter a rebel! You seem to be walking in your sleep, Lieutenant Blagdon, under the delusion of some ridiculous dream!"
"I implied no knowledge on your part, Monsieur de St. Valier, when I said the fellow had got into your house. We followed his track in the snow, and though we lost it for a moment in a crowd, before the wine shop yonder, we soon came on the same footprint, which led through the snow to your porch. The same feet left marks of snow on the porch, to your very door, and there are no marks leading away from it. Moreover, I know the man, and have reason to think he would have come to this house while in Quebec."
At this point Catherine hastened down the stairs, at first nonchalantly, but, on approaching the foot, a.s.suming a look of wonderment at the scene in the hall.
"Why, what has happened, Gerard? What is it, uncle?" she asked.
"And now," cried Blagdon, excitedly, "I know the man has been here since I left Miss de St. Valier an hour ago!" Catherine saw, as did her brother, that Blagdon"s eyes were fixed balefully on the miniature, which she had thoughtlessly retained in her hand.
"What man?" queried Catherine, turning red.
"The man who brought you back that portrait, which you didn"t have an hour ago," cried Blagdon, half mad with jealousy. "Sure proof the man must have entered this house since he left Colonel Maclean"s quarters, where he had been all day!"
"You are wrong, Lieutenant Blagdon," said Catherine, quietly. "Though you didn"t know it an hour ago, I have had my mother"s portrait since yesterday, as I meant to tell my uncle when I should see fit. It was handed to Gerard in the street by a man who did not wait for any words,--is it not so, Gerard?"
d.i.c.k, looking down from the darkness of the landing, saw Gerard bow in confirmation, and knew that the understanding between brother and sister was complete. He saw, also, Blagdon shake his head, with a derisively incredulous laugh.
"If any one came in by that door," said the elder St. Valier, "the servant should know it. You were here, Antoine. Did you admit any one?"
"Lieutenant Blagdon and the soldiers," replied Antoine.
"But Antoine could not have been minding his business," said Blagdon, "for we had to knock several times before he let us in."
"But," put in Antoine, "the door was locked before I admitted monsieur and the troops. Monsieur must have heard me unlock it. Does not that show that no one could have come in before monsieur, even if I were not at my place?"
"It shows merely that the man, after coming in, himself locked the door," said Blagdon. "He doubtless found it unlocked when he arrived.
I"ll wager Antoine will not take oath the door was locked at the time the man must have entered."
"Well, well," said Monsieur de St. Valier, "the question can be easily settled. I certainly don"t wish to have a rebel spy lodged in my house.
Let your troops search the place, lieutenant!"