Even the English soldiers cheered, and Madelinette sang a la Claire Fontaine, three verses in French and one in English, and the whole valley rang with the refrain sung at the topmost pitch by five thousand voices: "I'ya longtemps que je t'aime, Jamais je ne t'oublierai." The day of pleasure done and dusk settled on Pontiac and on the encampment of soldiers in the valley, a light still burned in the library at the Manor House long after midnight.

Madelinette had gone to bed, but, excited by the events of the day, she could not sleep, and she went down to the library to read.

But her mind wandered still, and she sat mechanically looking before her at a picture of the father of the late Seigneur, which was let into the moulding of the oak wall.

As she looked abstractedly and yet with the intensity of the preoccupied mind, her eye became aware of a little piece of wood let into the moulding of the frame.

The light of the hanging lamp was full on it.
This irregularity began to perplex her eye.