f there be a
sure place of concealment in New France."

The reply sent a ray of hope across the mind of the agonized girl. She
bounded with a sense of deliverance. It seemed so natural that Bigot, so
deeply concerned in her concealment, should have sent this peasant woman
to take her away, that she could not reflect at the moment how unlikely
it was, nor could she, in her excitement, read the lie upon the cold
face of La Corriveau.

She seized the explanation with the grasp of despair, as a sailor seizes
the one plank which the waves have washed within his reach, when all
else has sunk in the seas around him.

"Bigot sent you?" exclaimed Caroline, raising her hands, while her
pale face was suddenly suffused with a flush of joy. "Bigot sent you to
conduct me hence to a sure place of concealment? Oh, blessed messenger!
I believe you now." Her excited imagination outflew even the inventions
of La Corriveau. "Bigot has heard of my peril, and sent you here at
midnight to take me away to your forest home until this search be over.
Is it not so? Francois Bigot did not forget me in my danger, even while
he was away!"

"Yes, lady, the Intendant sent me to conduct you to St. Valier, to
hide you there in a sure retreat until the search be over," replied La
Corriveau, calmly eyeing her from head to foot.

"It is like him! He is not unkind when left to himself. It is so
like the Francois Bigot I once knew! But tell me, woman, what said he
further? Did you see him, did you hear him? Tell me all he said to you."

"I saw him, lady, and heard him," replied La Corriveau, taking the
bouquet in her fingers, "but he said little more than I have told you.
The Intendant is a stern man, and gives few words save commands to those
of my condition. But he bade me convey to you a token of his love;
you would know its meaning, he said. I have it safe, lady, in this
basket,--shall I give it to you?"

"A token of his love, of Francois Bigot's love to me! Are you a woman
and could delay giving it so long? Why gave you it not at first? I
should not have doubted you then. Oh, give it to me, and be blessed as
the welcomest messenger that ever came to Beaumanoir!"

La Corriveau held her hand a moment more in the basket. Her dark
features turned a shade paler, although not a nerve quivered as she
plucked out a parcel carefully wrapped in silver tissue. She slipped off
the cover, and held at arm's length towards the eager, expectant girl,
the fata