Besides, Christine was well used
to taking care of herself.
Lavilette flatly refused to give Nic a penny for "the cause," and stormed
at his connection with it; but at last became pacified, and agreed it was
best that Madame Lavilette should know nothing about Nic's complicity
just yet. At half past nine o'clock Nic left the house and took the road
towards the Seigneury.
CHAPTER XIII
About half-way between the Seigneury and the main street of the village
there was a huge tree, whose limbs stretched across the road and made a
sort of archway. In the daytime, during the summer, foot travellers,
carts and carriages, with their drivers, loitered in its shade as they
passed, grateful for the rest it gave; but at night, even when it was
moonlight, the wide branches threw a dark and heavy shadow, and the
passage beneath them was gloomy travel. Many a foot traveller hesitated
to pass into that umbrageous circle, and skirted the fence beyond the
branches on the further side of the road instead.
When Nicolas Lavilette, returning from the Seigneury with the precious
bag of gold for Papineau, came hurriedly along the road towards the
village, he half halted, with sudden premonition of danger, a dozen feet
or so from the great tree.
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