chyard of St. Saviour's forgiven
and unforgotten. How was it possible for Pontiac to forget him? Had
he not left his little fortune to the parish? and had he not also
left twenty thousand francs for the musical education of Madelinette
Lajeunesse, the daughter of the village forgeron, to learn singing of
the best masters in Paris? Pontiac's wrong-doings had brought it more
profit than penalty, more praise than punishment: for, after five
years in France in the care of the Little Chemist's widow, Madelinette
Lajeunesse had become the greatest singer of her day. But what had put
the severest strain upon the modesty of Pontiac was the fact that, on
the morrow of Madelinette's first triumph in Paris, she had married M.
Louis Racine, the new Seigneur of Pontiac.

What more could Pontiac wish? It had been rewarded for its mistakes; it
had not even been chastened, save that it was marked Suspicious as to
its loyalty, at the headquarters of the English Government in Quebec. It
should have worn a crown of thorns, but it flaunted a crown of roses. A
most unreasonable good fortune seemed to pursue it. It had been led to
expect that its new Seigneur would be an Englishman, one George Fournel,
to whom, as the late Seigneur had more than once declared, the property
was devised by will; but at his death no will had been found, and Louis
Racine, the direct heir in blood, had succeeded to the property and the
title.

Brilliant, enthusiastic, fanatically French, the new Seigneur had set
himself to revive certain old traditions, customs, and privileges of the
Seigneurial position. He was reactionary, seductive, generous, and at
first he captivated the hearts of Pontiac. He did more than that.
He captivated Madelinette Lajeunesse. In spite of her years in
Paris--severe, studious years, which shut out the social world and the
temptations of Bohemian life--Madelinette retained a strange simplicity
of heart and mind, a desperate love for her old home which would not
be gainsaid, a passionate loyalty to her past, which was an illusory
attempt to arrest the inevitable changes that come with growth; and,
with a sudden impulse, she had sealed herself to her past at the very
outset of her great career by marriage with Louis Racine.

On the very day of their marriage Louis Racine had made a painful
discovery. A heritage of his fathers, which had skipped two generations,
suddenly appeared in himself: he was becoming a hunchback.

Terror, despair