Where was the welcome the minister had
looked for? On this fat, usually smiling countenance he could discern
naught but astonishment, disappointment, anger!

What could have happened during that futile journey westward and back?
Poussette vouchsafed no reply, no solution. He avoided the puzzled
stare of the other man, and after giving some orders in French to
Crabbe and the other guide, Martin, a very decent Indian, quickly went
up to the house without greeting his guests.

Ringfield was suddenly seized with a sense of the ludicrous. He told
himself that he managed to be _de trop_ wherever he went, but he also
firmly resolved that no temper, no caprice on his patron's part should
affect him now. If possible he must remain at St. Ignace and ignore
whatever had caused the singular change in Poussette's attitude. There
was indeed fish for supper, but he fancied that the cunning touch of
the chef was wanting, and he was right. Poussette had not entered the
kitchen.

CHAPTER VI

THE MISSIONARY

"Nor is it a mean phase of rural life,
And solitude, that they do favour most,
Most frequently call forth and best sustain
These pure sensations."

The following day Ringfield's curiosity naturally ran high; he was
entirely in the dark as to the peculiar treatment he had received at
the hands of Poussette, and it followed that one strong idea shut out
others. Miss Clairville's image for the time was obliterated, yet he
remembered to ask Crabbe whether the letter had been safely delivered,
to which the guide replied rather curtly in the affirmative. He
supposed Pauline to be still at the manor-house, but the truth was, on
the receipt of his letter a sudden temper shook her; she wrote at once
to M. Rochelle, her former manager in Montreal, requesting a place in
his company, and the evening that brought Ringfield back to St. Ignace
took her away.

There were symptoms of thaw stirring in Poussette, and the minister did
his best to encourage them, but on the Saturday afternoon following his
return, when it was necessary to hold some sustained business
conversation with his patron, the latter could not be found. The bar
was a model of Saturday cleanliness, damp and tidy, smelling equally of
lager beer and yellow soap. Fresh lemons and newly-ironed red napkins
adorned the tall glasses ranged in front of Sir John A. Macdonald's
lithograph, and the place was dark and tenantless, save for Plouffe, a
lazy r