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