“There are unexplained gaps in your own letters,” she reminded him audaciously. “It was only by chance that I heard whom you took out, the night of the Leighton dinner.” Then she turned to the others. “We mustn’t go far, this morning,” she added; “not so much on account of your foot, Mr. Barth, as because of our early dinner. Shall we take ourselves to the terrace?”
High up on the glacis in the lee of the King’s Bastion, they found a belated bit of Indian summer. Nancy dropped down on the crisp, dry turf and, turning, beckoned St. Jacques to her side. Crossing the terrace with Barth, she had seen the Frenchman pacing to and fro beside the rail, and she had answered his wishful greeting with a smile of welcome. Leaving Brock and Churchill to lead the way, Nancy had sauntered idly along in the rear, adjusting her quick step to the frailties of Barth’s ankle, her alert happiness to the darker mood which sat heavily upon her other companion.
“You are not going to fail us, this afternoon, M. St. Jacques?” she asked now.
“Your cousin has a perfect day,” he said, after a pause.
“And he appreciates it. Already, he declares himself the slave of the place.”
“You are coming with me, in the morning?” St. Jacques inquired.
“I am not sure. I hope we can; but Mr. Churchill is not a very good Catholic,” she answered, with a smile.
“But Sainte Anne is his patron saint?” he questioned.
“Alas, no! He has shifted his allegiance, and poor Sainte Anne is feeling very much cut up about it.”
“No matter,” St. Jacques answered philosophically. “She is getting her fair share of devotees, and, with France and England at her shrine, she can afford to be content without America.” Then his face darkened. “If only she will be propitious!” he added, with sudden gravity.
Nancy’s hand shut on a tuft of grass at her side. Slowly she had come, during those past days, to the realization of the dual personality of the patron saint of Adolphe St. Jacques. Half human, half divine, the Good Sainte Anne was holding complete sway in the mind of the young Frenchman, just then. Half his unspoken wish was plain to her, half was still beyond her ken. She wondered restlessly when would come the time that she was free to speak. She wondered, too, what were the words she was destined to say.