“Something will happen soon which may turn your heart to stone and ice, M’sieur,” he said, and his voice was scarce above a whisper.  “I wanted her to tell you back there, two days ago, but she shrank from the ordeal then.  It is coming to-night.  And, however it may effect you, M’sieur, I ask you not to show the horror of it, but to have pity.  You have perhaps known many women, but you have never known one like our Josephine.  In her soul is the purity of the blue skies, the sweetness of the wild flowers, the goodness of our Blessed Lady, the Mother of Christ.  You may disbelieve, and what is to come may eat at the core of your heart as it has devoured life and happiness from mine.  But you will love L’Ange—­ our Josephine—­just the same.”

Even as he felt himself trembling strangely at Jean Croisset’s words, Philip replied: 

“Always, Jean, I swear that.”

In the open door Josephine had paused for a moment, and was looking back.  Then she disappeared.

“Come,” said Jean.  “And may God have pity on you if you fail to keep your word in all you have promised, M’sieur Philip Darcambal.  For from this hour on you are Philip Darcambal, of Montreal, the husband of Josephine Adare, our beloved lady of the forests.  Come, M’sieur!”

CHAPTER NINE

Without another word Jean led the way to the door, which had partly closed after Josephine.  For a moment he paused with his hand upon it, and then entered.  Philip was close behind him.  His first glance swept the room in search of the girl.  She had disappeared with her two companions.  For a moment he heard voices beyond a second door in front of him.  Then there was silence.

In wonder he stared about him, and Jean did not interrupt his gaze.  He stood in a great room whose walls were of logs and axe-hewn timbers.  It was a room forty feet long by twenty in width, massive in its build, with walls and ceiling stained a deep brown.  In one end was a fireplace large enough to hold a pile of logs six feet in length, and in this a small fire was smouldering.  In the centre of the room was a long, massive table, its timber carved by the axe, and on this a lamp was burning.  The floor was strewn with fur rugs, and on the walls hung the mounted heads of beasts.  These things impressed themselves upon Philip first.  It was as if he had stepped suddenly out of the world in which he was living into the ancient hall of a wild and half-savage thane whose bones had turned to dust centuries ago.

Not until Jean spoke to him, and led the way through the room, was this first impression swept back by his swift and closer observation of detail.  About him extreme age was curiously blended with the modern.  His breath stopped short when he saw in the shadow of the farther wall a piano, with a bronze lamp suspended from the ceiling above it.  His eyes caught the shadowy outline of cases filled with books; he saw close to the fireplace wide, low-built divans covered with cushions; and over the door through which they passed hung a framed copy of da Vinci’s masterpiece, “La Joconde,” the Smiling Woman.