CHAPTER XII.
Twenty men had suddenly disappeared from Bonaventure on the day that Ferrol visited Sophie Farcinelle, and it was only the next morning that the cause of their disappearance was generally known.
There had been many rumours abroad that a detachment of men from the parish were to join Papineau.

The Rebellion was to be publicly declared on a certain date near at hand, but nothing definite was known; and because the Cure condemned any revolt against British rule, in spite of the evils the province suffered from bad government, every recruit who joined Nic Lavilette's standard was sworn to secrecy.

Louis Lavilette and his wife knew nothing of their son's complicity in the rumoured revolt--one's own people are generally the last to learn of one's misdeeds.

Madame would have been sorely frightened and chagrined if she had known the truth, for she was partly English.

Besides, if the Rebellion did not succeed, disgrace must come, and then good-bye to the progress of the Lavilettes, and goodbye, maybe, to her son! In spite of disappointments and rebuffs in many quarters, she still kept faith with her ambitions, and, fortunately for herself, she did not see the abject failure of many of her schemes.