Presently, at the end of the stanza, I heard another voice from the
doorway of the chateau.
"Ah, Blaise," said Jeannotte, "it is the spirit of your mother that
controls you now."
He made no answer, nor did he resume his singing. Then I recalled that
for the past few days he had not shown his former susceptibility to the
maid's charms; he had, indeed, exhibited towards her a kind of
disapproving shyness. I had not attached any importance to this.
"Why do you not go on singing your psalm?" Jeannotte asked, coming
nearer to him.
His answer was a strange one. It was spoken with a kind of contemptuous
irony and searching interrogation. The words were:
"Mademoiselle's boy Pierre has not yet come back to us."
"What has that to do with your singing?" said Jeannotte. "We all know it
very well. Poor Pierre! To think that he may have been taken by Monsieur
de Berquin!"
"It is well that he did not know the place of our destination when he
went away," said Blaise, in the same insignificant tone, "else M. de
Berquin might torture the secret out of him, and carry it to the governor
of the province, for M. de Berquin knows now that my master is La
Tournoire. It would not be well for the boy, or any one else, to be the
means of the governor's learning La Tournoire's hiding-place!"
After which words, spoken with a kind of ominous menace, Blaise abruptly
left the girl, and strode around the corner of the chateau.
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