But oh, Angelique, why, with all your influence over him did you not prevent it? Why do you not rescue him now? A word from you would have been of more avail than the pleading of all the world beside!"
"Amelie, you try me hard," said Angelique, uneasily, conscious of the truth of Amelie's words, "but I can bear much for the sake of Le Gardeur! Be assured that I have no power to influence his conduct in the way of amendment, except upon impossible conditions! I have tried, and my efforts have been vain as your own!"
"Conditions!" replied Amelie, "what conditions?--but I need not ask you! He told me in his hour of agony of your inexplicable dealing with him, and yet not so inexplicable now! Why did you profess to love my brother, leading him on and on to an offer of his hand, and then cruelly reject him, adding one more to the list of your heartless triumphs? Le Gardeur de Repentigny was too good for such a fate from any woman, Angelique!" Amelie's eyes swam in tears of indignation as she said this.
"He was too good for me!" said Angelique, dropping her eyes. "I will acknowledge that, if it will do you any good, Amelie! But can you not believe that there was a sacrifice on my part, as well as on his or yours?"
"I judge not between you, Angelique! or between the many chances wasted on you; but I say this Angelique des Meloises, you wickedly stole the heart of the noblest brother in New France, to trample it under your feet!"
"'Fore God, I did not, Amelie!" she replied indignantly. "I loved and do love Le Gardeur de Repentigny, but I never plighted my troth to him, I never deceived him! I told him I loved him, but I could not marry him! And by this sacred cross," said she, placing her hands upon it, "it is true! I never trampled upon the heart of Le Gardeur; I could kiss his hands, his feet, with true affection as ever loving woman gave to man; but my duty, my troth, my fate, were in the hands of another!"
Angelique felt a degree of pleasure in the confession to Amelie of her love for her brother. It was the next thing to confessing it to himself, which had been once the joy of her life, but it changed not one jot her determination to wed only the Intendant, unless--yes, her busy mind had to-day called up a thousand possible and impossible contingencies that might spring up out of the unexpected use of the stiletto by Corriveau. What if the Intendant, suspecting her complicity in the murder of Caroline, should refuse to marry her? Were it not well in that desperate case to have Le Gardeur to fall back upon?
Amelie watched nervously the changing countenance of Angelique. She knew it was a beautiful mask covering impenetrable deceit, and that no principle of right kept her from wrong when wrong was either pleasant or profitable.
The conviction came upon Amelie like a flash of inspiration that she was wrong in seeking to save Le Gardeur by seconding his wild offer of marriage to Angelique. A union with this false and capricious woman would only make his ruin more complete and his latter end worse than the first. She would not urge it, she thought.
"Angelique," said she, "if you love Le Gardeur, you will not refuse your help to rescue him from the Palace. You cannot wish to see him degraded as a gentleman because he has been rejected by you as a lover."