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The Belovéd Traitor

by Frank L. Packard · English · Gutenberg #34034 · 559,980 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Belovéd Traitor

Author: Frank L. Packard


        
Release date: October 4, 2010 [eBook #34034]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34034

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BELOVÉD TRAITOR ***




Produced by Al Haines









_The Beloved Traitor_


BY

FRANK L. PACKARD


AUTHOR OF "THE MIRACLE MAN," "GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN," ETC.



THE COPP, CLARK CO., LIMITED

TORONTO




COPYRIGHT, 1915

BY FRANK L. PACKARD




There is a Valley called the Valley of Illusion, but beyond it,
sun-crowned, is the Peak of Eternal Truth--and the Way from the Valley
to the Peak is sore beset, for the Way is the Understanding of Things
Real, and its Achievement is the Fullness of Life.




CONTENTS


BOOK I: BERNAY-SUR-MER

CHAPTER

    I  THE HOUSE ON THE BLUFF
   II  THE KEEPERS OF THE LIGHT
  III  THE BEACON
   IV  STRANGERS WITHIN THE GATES
    V  "WHO IS JEAN LAPARDE?"
   VI  THE GIFT
  VII  WHERE GLORY AWAITS
 VIII  SHADOWS BEFORE
   IX  FORKED ROADS
    X  A DAUGHTER OF FRANCE
   XI  THE PENDULUM


BOOK II: TWO YEARS LATER

    I  THE DUPLICITY OF FATHER ANTON
   II  26 RUE VANITAIRE
  III  IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT
   IV  THE ACCUSATION
    V  THE SECRET MODEL
   VI  "JEAN MUST NOT KNOW"
  VII  MEA CULPA
 VIII  FLIGHT
   IX  MYRNA'S STRATEGY
    X  THROUGH THE FOG
   XI  THE "DEATH" OF JEAN LAPARDE
  XII  AT THE "GATEWAY"
 XIII  DAWN
  XIV  THE STATUE OF DREAMS




The Beloved Traitor


BOOK I: BERNAY-SUR-MER


-- I --

THE HOUSE ON THE BLUFF

It was a wilder gust than any that had gone before.  It tore along the
beach with maniacal fury; and, shrieking in a high, devilishly-gleeful
falsetto, while the joints of the little inn, rheumatic with age,
squeaked in its embrace, shook the Taverne du Bas Rhone much after the
fashion of a terrier shaking a rat.  And with that gust, loosening the
dilapidated fastening on the casement, a window crashed inward,
shattering the pane against the wall.

"_Sacre bleu!_" shouted a man, springing smartly to his feet from his
seat at a small table as the rain lashed him.  "What a dog of a night!"

Against the opposite wall, tilted back in a chair, Papa Fregeau, the
patron, a rotund, aproned little individual, stopped the humming of his
song.

"_Tiens!_" said he fatuously.  "But it is worse than that, Alcide,
since it is bad for business--hah!  Not a franc profit to-night--the
Bas Rhone is desolated."  And he resumed his song:

  "In Languedoc, where the wine flows free,
    We drink to----"


"Hold your bibulous tongue, Jacques Fregeau, and get something with
which to fix that window before we are as wet inside as you!"--it was
Madame Fregeau, stout, middle-aged and rosy, already hurrying to the
aid of the first speaker, who was wrestling with the dismantled
fastening.

Usually the nightly resort of the little fishing village of
Bernay-sur-Mer, the Bas Rhone, inn, cabaret, tavern or cafe, as it was
variously styled, now held but two others in the room that was
habitually crowded to suffocation.  One was a young man, sturdily
built, with a tanned, clean-cut face, smooth-shaven save for a small
black moustache, whose rumpled black hair straggled in pleasing
disarray over his forehead; the other was older, a man of forty, whose
skin was bronzed almost to blackness from the Mediterranean sun.  Both
were in rough fishermen's dress, sitting at dominoes under the hanging
lamp in the centre of the room.  On the table, pushed to one side, were
the remains of a simple meal of bread and cheese; and from the inside
of the loaf, the younger man, somewhat to the detriment of his own game
and to the advantage of his opponent, had plucked out a piece of the
soft bread, which he had kneaded between his fingers into a plastic
lump, and thereafter, with amazing skill and deftness, had been engaged
in moulding into little faces, and heads, and figures of various sorts,
as he played.

The older man spoke slowly now:

"It is twenty years since we have had the like--you do not remember
that, Jean?  You were too young."

Jean Laparde, an amused smile lurking in his dark eyes as he watched
Jacques Fregeau waddle obediently to his wife's side, shook his head.

"I was on the _Etoile_ that night," said the other, pulling at his
beard.  "The good God dealt hardly with us--we lost two when we
beached; but not so hardly as with the _Antoinette_--none came to shore
from her.  It was a night just such as this."

"Ay, that is so," corroborated Papa Fregeau, removing his apron and
stuffing it into the broken window pane.  "It is, after all, small
blame to any one that they stay indoors to-night and forget my profits."

"Profits!" ejaculated Madame Fregeau tartly.  "You drink them all up!"
She shook her short skirts, damp from her skirmish with the storm, and
turned to Jean's companion at the table.  "Pray the blessed Virgin,"
she said softly, crossing herself reverently, "that there be no boats
out to-night, Pierre Lachance."

"And God for pity on them if there are!" returned the fisherman.  "But
there are none from Bernay-sur-Mer, that is sure."  He played the last
domino before him with a little triumphant flourish.  "Ah, Jean,
count--you are caught, my boy!  It will teach you to pay more attention
to the game, and less to the waste of Madame Fregeau's good bread!"

"She is used to that!" smiled Jean Laparde good-naturedly, as he faced
his dominoes, disclosing the measure of his defeat, and, pushing back
his chair, stood up.

"But," protested the other, "you are not going!  We will play again.
See, it is early, the clock has but just struck eight."

"Not to-night, Pierre," said Jean, laughing now, as he began to button
his jacket around his throat.  "Play with Alcide there."

"Chut!" cried Madame Fregeau, bustling forward, her eyes twinkling.
"The little minx will not expect you a night like this--Marie-Louise is
too sensible a girl to be piqued for that.  You are not going out
to-night, Jean, _ma foi_!"

"And why not?" asked Jean innocently.  "Why not, Mother Fregeau?  What
is a little wind, and a little rain, and a little walk along the beach?"

"But a night like this!" sighed Papa Fregeau dolorously, as he joined
the group, his forefinger laid facetiously against the side of his
stubby little nose.  "_Nom d'un nom_!  What constancy--what sublime
constancy!"

"Ah, you laugh at that, _mon petit bete_!" exclaimed Madame Fregeau
sharply, instantly changing front.  "You are an old fool, Jacques
Fregeau!"

"But I was a young one once, _ma belle_--eh?" insinuated Jacques,
pinching his wife's plump cheek, and winking prodigiously at Jean
Laparde.  "It is of that you are thinking, eh?"

"You are ridiculous!" declared Madame Fregeau, blushing and pushing him
away.

"You see, Jean?" said Jacques Fregeau plaintively, shrugging his
shoulders.  "You see, eh, _mon gaillard_?  You see what you are coming
to!  Oh, _la, la_, once I was young like you, and Lucille, _ma cherie_,
here, was like--eh?--like Marie-Louise.  You see, eh?  You see what you
are coming to!"

There was a roar of laughter from the man at the table in the rear,
that was echoed in a guffaw by Pierre Lachance, as Jean, leaning
suddenly forward, caught Madame Fregeau's comely, motherly face between
his hands and kissed her on both cheeks.

"I'd ask for no better luck, Jacques!" he cried--and ran for the door.

Laughing, and with a wave of his hand back at the little group, he
opened the door, closed it behind him with a powerful wrench against
the wind; and then, outside, stood still for a moment, as though taken
utterly by surprise at the abandon of the night.  He had not been out
before that day.  Like all, or nearly all of Bernay-sur-Mer he had
remained snugly indoors--for what was a fisherman to do in weather like
that!  Mend nets?  Well, yes, he had mended nets.  One must do that.
He shrugged his shoulders, making a wry grimace.  Nets!  But the night
was bad--much worse than he had imagined.  And yet--yes--the storm was
at its height now, but the wind had changed--by morning, thank the
saints, it would be better.

It was black about him, inky black--all save a long, straggling,
twinkling line of lights from the cottage windows that bordered the
beach, and the dull yellow glow from the windows of the Bas Rhone at
his side.  Around him a veritable bedlam seemed loosed--the wind, like
a horde of demons, shrieking, whistling and howling in unholy jubilee;
while heavier, more ominous, in a deeper roar came the booming of the
surf from where it broke upon the beach but little more than a hundred
yards in front of him.

Jean Laparde stood hesitant.  It was quite true; Mother Fregeau had
been right!  Marie-Louise would not expect him to-night, and it was a
good mile from the village to the house on the bluff, and yet--he
smiled a little, and suddenly, head down, struck out into the storm.

A flash of lightning, jagged, threw the night into a strange, tremulous
luminance--the headlands of the little bay; the mighty combers, shaking
their topped crests like manes, hurling themselves in impotent fury at
the shore, then spreading in thin creamy layers to lick up wide,
irregular patches of the beach; the sweep of the Mediterranean, so slow
to anger, but a tumbling rage of waters now as far as the eye could
reach; the whitewashed cottages; boats, dark objects without form or
shape, drawn far up on the sand; the pale, yellowish-green of the sward
stretching away behind the village; the road beneath his feet a pool of
mud--and then blackness again, utter, impenetrable, absolute.

Jean passed the last of the cottages--there were but four on that side
of the Bas Rhone--and kept on, following the curve of the beach toward
the eastern headland.  But now, the lightness of spirit that had been
with him but a few moments before was gone, and a restlessness,
bordering on depression, took its place.  What was it?  The storm?  No;
it could not very well be that, for it had come often to him before,
unbidden, unwelcomed, that same mood--even in the glorious sunlight,
even in the midst of song as he fished the blue, sparkling waters that,
more than anything else, had been his home ever since he could
remember.  It seemed, and it was a very strange and absurd fancy, but
it was always the same, that a voice, wordless, without sound, talked
speciously to him, talked him into a state of discontent that robbed
him of all delight in his work, his environment and his surroundings,
and, arrived at that stage, would suddenly bid him peremptorily to
follow--and that was all.  Follow!  Where?  He did not know.  It made
him angry, but it did not in any way lighten the mood that was forced
upon him in spite of himself.

And now, as it always came, unsought and unexpected, this mood was upon
him again; and, as he plunged through the storm, drawing the collar of
his jacket more closely around his throat against the sheets of rain,
he fought with himself to shake it off.  It was absurd.  And why should
he be unhappy for something that was absurd?  That was still more
absurd!  He was not sick, there was nothing the matter with him.  He
was strong--none was stronger than he, and he had matched himself
against them all in Bernay-sur-Mer.  True, it was a hard life, and
there were not riches to be found in the nets--but there were
friends--he was rich in friends--all Bernay-sur-Mer was his friend.
There were the Fregeaus, with whom he had lived at the Bas Rhone for
over ten years now since his father had died.  Madame Fregeau was a
mother to him, and Jacques was the biggest-hearted man in the whole
south of France.  And, _mon Dieu_!--he began to smile now--there
were--should he name every family in the village?--even to the children
for whom he made the clay _poupees_, the dolls that in their play lives
were, in turn, veritable children to them?  Ah, to be in ugly mind--it
was no less than a sin!  There were candles to burn for that, and the
good Father Anton would have a word to say if he knew!  And best of
all--there was Marie-Louise.  There was none, none _pardieu_, in the
whole wide sweep of France like Marie-Louise, with her eyes like stars,
and her face fresh as the morning breeze across the sparkling waters,
and a figure so beautiful, so lithe, so strong!  What charm to see
those young arms on the oars, the bosom heave, to feel the boat bound
forward under the stroke, and hear her laugh ring out with the pure joy
of life!

"Marie-Louise!" cried Jean Laparde aloud--and the wind seemed to catch
up the words and echo them in a triumphant shout: "Marie-Louise!"

It was gone--that mood.  And now, with the village well behind him, the
lights blotted out and seeming to have left him isolated even from
human proximity, another came--and he stood still--and this time it was
the storm.  And something within him, without will or volition of his,
spontaneous, leapt out in consonance with the wild grandeur of the
night to revel in it, atune with the Titanic magnificence of the
spectacle, as one who gazes upon a splendid canvas and, innate in
appreciation, is lost in the conception to which the master brush has
given life.  And so he stood there for a long time immovable, his
shoulders thrust a little forward, the rain streaming from his face,
his eyes afire, wrapt, lost in the clashing elements before him--and
fancy came.  The play of the lightning was more vivid now, and the
coast line took on changing shapes, as though seeking by new and
swiftly conceived formations to foil and combat and thrust back and
parry the furious attack of the breakers that hurled themselves onward
in their mad, never-ending charge; while behind again, in sudden
apparitions, like spectre battalions massed in reserve, the white
cottages appeared for an instant, and then, as though seeking a more
strategic position, vanished utterly, until a flame-tongue crackling
across the heavens searched them out again, laying their position bare
once more; and the headlands, vanguards where the fight was hottest,
were lost in a smother of spume and spray, like the smoke of battle
swirling over them--and it was battle, and the thunder of the surf was
the thunder of belching cannon, and the shriek of the wind was the
shriek of hurtling shells.  It was battle--and some consciousness
inborn in Jean Laparde awakened and filled him with understanding, and
in the terror; and dismay and awe and strife and fierce elation was the
great allegory of life, and suddenly he knew a lowly reverence for Him
who had depicted this, and a joy, full of a strange indefinable
yearning, in the divine genius of its execution.

"It is the great art of the _bon Dieu_," said Jean simply.

And after a little while he went forward on his way again.

The road led upward now in a gentle slope toward higher land, though
still following the line of the beach.  Near the extremity of the
headland was the cottage that the village always called the "house on
the bluff," and in a moment now he should be able to see the light.
There was always a light there every night, in good weather and in
stormy--and never in fourteen years had it been otherwise, not since
the night that Marie-Louise's father, the brother of old Gaston
Bernier, steering for the headland in a gale had miscalculated his
position and been drowned on the Perigeau Reef.  From that day it had
become a religion with Gaston, a sacred rite, that light; and, in time,
it had become an institution in Bernay-sur-Mer--not a fisherman in the
village now but steered by it, not one but that, failing to sight it,
would have taken it for granted that he was off his course and would
have put about, braving even the wildest weather, until he had picked
it up.

The light!  Jean smiled to himself.  He was very wet, but he had found
a most wonderful joy in the storm--and, besides, what did a little
wetting matter?  In a few minutes now Marie-Louise would cry out in
delight at seeing him, and he would fling off his drenched jacket and
pull up a chair to the stove beside old Gaston, and they would light
their pipes, and Marie-Louise would prepare the spiced wine, and--he
halted as though stunned.

He had reached the big rock where the road made its second turn and ran
directly to the house--and there was no light.  It was the exact spot
from which he should first be able to see it--a hundred times, on a
hundred nights, he had looked for it, and found it there--by the
turning at the big rock.  He dashed the rain from his face with a sweep
of his hand, and strained his eyes into the blackness.  There was
nothing there--only the blackness.  He reached out mechanically and
touched the rock, as though to assure himself that it was there--and
then he laughed a little unnaturally.  There must be some mistake--for
fourteen years that light had burned in the window, and it could be
seen from this point on the road--there must be some mistake.  Perhaps
just another step would bring it into view!

And then, as he moved forward, something cold gripped at Jean's heart.
There was no mistake--the light was out for the first time in fourteen
years!  The light that old Gaston had never failed to burn since the
night his brother died, the light that had become a part of the man
himself--was out!  Was he ill--sick?  Why, then, had Marie-Louise not
lighted it?  She had done it before, often and often before.  But now
neither one nor the other had lighted it, and they, just the two of
them, were the only occupants of the house--Marie-Louise and her old
uncle.  Just the two of them--and the light was out!

Jean was running now, smashing his way along the road through the
clayey mud and water, splashing it to his knees, buffeting against the
wind; and, with every step, the sense of dread that had settled upon
him grew heavier.  It was no ordinary thing this!  Old Gaston would
have lighted the lamp while there remained strength in his body to do
it; it was a sacred trust that he had imposed upon himself which had
grown more inviolable as the years had crept upon him and he had grown
older.  It brought fear to Jean, and the greater stab at the thought of
Marie-Louise.  Things were wrong--and what was wrong with one was wrong
with both.  Was it not Marie-Louise who polished the great lamp chimney
so zealously every morning and filled the big, dinted brass bowl of the
lamp with oil; and was it not Marie-Louise who watched with
affectionate understanding each evening as her uncle lighted it?

A shadowy mass, the house, loomed suddenly out of the darkness before
him.  It seemed to give him added speed, and in another moment he was
at the door--and the door was open, wide open, blown inward with the
wind.

"Marie-Louise!" he shouted, as he rushed inside.  "Gaston!  Gaston!"
And again: "Marie-Louise!"

There was no answer--no sound but the shriek of wind, the groaning of
the house timbers in travail with the storm.  He pushed the door shut
behind him, and something like a sob came from Jean's lips--and then he
shouted once more.

Still there was no answer.

He felt his way to the kitchen, and across the kitchen to the shelf by
the rear wall, found a candle, and lighted it.  He held the flame above
his head, sweeping the light about him, and, discovering nothing, ran
back into the front room--and, with a low cry, stood still.  On the
floor the great lamp lay broken, the chimney shattered into splinters.
He stared at it in a frightened, almost superstitious way.  The great
lamp broken!  Did it mean that--no, no, it could not mean that!  It was
the wind that had blown it there in bursting in the door.  See, there
was no disorder anywhere!  He ran into Gaston's room.  Nothing!
Nothing anywhere to indicate that anything had happened--and yet,
apparently, the house was empty--and that was enough!  Out?  They had
gone out somewhere, even in the storm, on some homely errand, to pay a
visit perhaps?  Impossible!  With the lamp for the first time in
fourteen years unlighted, and broken now upon the floor?  It was
impossible!  While Gaston Bernier lived the light would burn!

He climbed the stairs and stood on the threshold of the little attic
room, the flickering candle playing timorously with the darker shadows
where the roof in its sharp angle spread into an inverted V.  It was
the first time he had ever looked into that room.  It was
Marie-Louise's room.  It was all white, scrupulously white, from the
bare floor to the patched quilt on the little bed.  There was a
freshness, a sweetness about it that seemed to personify Marie-Louise,
to fill the room with her--and it swept him now with a sudden numbing
agony, and his face, wet with the rain that dripped from the hair
straggling over his forehead, showed grey and set as it glistened
curiously in the yellow, sputtering candle light.

And then, half mad with anxiety, the sure, intuitive knowledge of
disaster upon him, he rushed downstairs again; and, hurriedly
exchanging his candle for a lantern, went out into the night.

A search around the house revealed no more than within.  He ran then
down the path to the beach, to where, well up under the protection of
the low bluff and away from the reach of the highest tide, old Gaston
stored his boats and fishing gear.  And there, as Jean flashed his
lantern around him, a low, strained cry, for the second time, came from
his lips.  Three boats old Gaston owned--who should know better than
he, Jean Laparde, who fished with the other season after season!--but
of the three boats only two were there upon the beach.

As a man wounded then and dazed with his hurt, Jean stood there.  They
had gone--out into that--Marie-Louise and old Gaston--and they had not
come back.  It was not true--it was beyond belief!  No; it was not
true--something only had happened to the boat--no man in Bernay-sur-Mer
would have been so mad as to have ventured out!

Far to the south the heavens opened in a burst of flame, and,
travelling far and fast, a zigzag tongue of lightning, like the
venomous thrust of a serpent's fang, leaped across the skies.  It
lighted up the beach, and, further out over the waters, a quarter of a
mile away, played upon the smother of spray that like a shroud flung
itself over the Perigeau Reef--and the cry that came from Jean Laparde
was wild, hoarse-throated now.  What was that he had seen!

It was dark again out there.  He swung his lantern, signalling
frantically--then, holding it high and rigid, waited for the next flash.

It came.

"Marie-Louise," he whispered through white lips.

Far out on the extremity of the reef, a figure stood silhouetted
against the spray for an instant--and blackness fell again.




-- II --

THE KEEPERS OF THE LIGHT

For a moment's space Jean stood there measuring, as it were, the sweep
of waters, as one might measure the strength of some antagonist thrust
suddenly upon him--and then, turning, he ran back to the boats, and
began to drag one down the beach.

No man in all Bernay-sur-Mer would dare to venture out.  He had said
that himself--but there was no thought of that now.  Marie-Louise was
on the Perigeau Reef.  He was strong, strong as a young bull, and he
tugged now at the heavy boat with the added nervous strength of a man
near mad with desperation, heaving it swiftly across the sand.  At high
tide even in calm weather the Perigeau was awash--in storm, far better
to plunge into the water than to be pounded to death upon those
_diable_ rocks, lifted up and pounded upon the rocks, and lifted up and
pounded again, when the water should be high.  At ten o'clock it would
be full tide.  Thanks to the _bon Dieu_ it was not eight o'clock when
the water would be at its height, or else--

"_Sacre nom d'un nom, d'un nom_"--Jean was grinding words from between
his teeth.  They came utterly without volition, utterly meaningless,
utterly spontaneous from the brain afire.

It was the lee of the headland, and it was the mercy of the _Sainte
Vierge_ that it was so; otherwise, _bapteme de bapteme_! no boat could
live where a fish would drown.  But it was the smoother water of a
mill-race--in with the tide, out with the tide--between the headland
and the Perigeau it was like that.

With a wrench, Jean swung the boat around--he had been dragging it by
the stern--and, at the water's edge now, the dying efforts of a spent
and broken wave wrapped and curled around the bow in creamy foam.
Then, racing up the beach once more to the shelter of the bluff, he
knelt there to plant his lantern in the sand, ballasting it securely
with rocks, flung his jacket down beside it, and ran back to the
water's edge again.

He shoved the boat further out until it was half afloat, shipped the
oars--and waited, steadying the craft with an iron grip on the
gunwales.  A wave lifted her, the water swirled around his knees,
seethed behind him, rushed back hissing sharply in its retreat--and
Jean, bending, shoved with all his strength, as he sprang aboard.

The boat shot out on the receding wave, and, as he flung himself upon
the seat, smashed into the next oncoming breaker, wavered, half turned,
righted under a mighty tug at the oars, engulfed herself in a sheet of
spray--and slid onward down into the bubbling hollow.

None in Bernay-sur-Mer was a better boatman than Jean Laparde, and
Bernay-sur-Mer in that respect held its head above all Languedoc; for
at the water fetes now for three years had not Jean Laparde secured to
it the coveted _prix_!  But to-night it was a different race that lay
before him.

For a little way, while the lee of the headland held, a child almost,
once the boat was free of the broken surf on the beach, might have held
the craft to her course--but only for that little way.  For fifty yards
perhaps the boat leapt forward, straight as an arrow, heading well
above the Perigeau Reef--and then suddenly the lighted lantern on the
beach seemed to travel seaward at an incredible speed, as the onrush of
tide, wind and sea through the narrows caught the boat, twisted it like
a cork, and, high-borne on a wave-crest, hurled it along past the
shoreline toward the lower end of the bay--and the twinkling lantern
was blotted out from sight.  Tight-lipped, his muscles cracking with
the strain, Jean forced the boat around again, and the tough oars bent
under his strokes.

There were two ways to the Perigeau Reef--he had thought of both of
them.  One, to go down in the shelter of the headland to the lower end
of the bay, circuit the shore-line there until he was free of the
mill-race through the narrows, then pull straight out for the
Perigeau--only, the _bon Dieu_ knew well, no man was strong enough for
that; it was too far, for the bay on this side, deeper than on the
other side of the headland by Bernay-sur-Mer, extended inward for
nearly two miles, and to pull back that distance against the full force
of the storm--only a madman would try it, and no boat would live!  The
other way was the only chance--the quarter mile across the narrows.

A quarter mile!  He pulled on and on, minute after minute that were as
endless periods of time; and whether he was making progress or losing
it he did not know, only that with each minute his strength was being
taxed to the utmost, until it seemed to be ebbing from him, until his
arms in their sockets caused him brutal pain.  And it was all like a
black veil that wrapped itself about him now, blacker than it had ever
been before that night--the loss of that tiny guiding light he had left
upon the beach seemed to make it so, and seemed to try to rob him of
his courage because it was gone.  The never-ending roar of buffeting
sea and surf was in his ears until his head rang with the sound--the
waves pounded his boat and tossed it like a chip upon their crests, and
slopped aboard and sloshed at his feet--and they thundered upon the
shore, and upon the headland, and they were mocking at him.  The
lightning came again--it lighted up the house upon the bluff and with
bitter dismay he saw that, too, was sweeping seaward--it flickered a
ghostly radiance upon dancing shore shapes--it played upon a tumbling
wall of water, onrushing, towering above his head from where the boat
quivered in the trough far down below.  And at sight of this, like a
madman, Jean Laparde pulled then--up--up--up--the crest was curling,
snarling its vengeance before it broke--and then it seethed away in a
great trail of murmuring foam that lapped at the boat's sides and crept
in over the gunwales.  And there were many more like that, so many that
they were countless--and they never stopped--and they were stronger
than he--and there was always another--and each was greater than the
one before--and he sobbed at last in utter weakness over the oars.

Marie-Louise, Gaston, the Perigeau, all were living before him in a
daze now--the brain became subordinate to the bodily exhaustion.  There
was only a jumbled medley of hell and death and eternal struggle around
him, and a subconsciousness that for him too the end had come--the good
Father Anton would say a requiem mass for him--and Bernay-sur-Mer would
tell its children that Jean would never make any more of the clay
_poupees_ for them--and the children would cry--and it was all very
droll.

He pulled on, mechanically, doggedly.  His face was wrinkled where the
muscles twisted in pain, drops that were not rain nor spray stood out
in great beads upon his forehead, his back seemed breaking, his arms
useless things that writhed with the strain upon them.

Wild thoughts came to him.  Why should he struggle there against the
pitiless strength that was greater than his, until he could no longer
even meet the waves with the bow of his boat, until they would turn him
over and over and afterwards roll him upon the shore, where Papa
Fregeau, perhaps, would find him!  See, it would be a very easy matter
to stop while he had yet a little strength left to guide the boat--and
run with the waves--and it would rest him--and by the time he got to
the shore he would be quite strong enough again to fight his way
through the breakers.  His lips moved, teeth working over them, biting
into them, tinging them with blood.  It came out of this hell and these
storm devils around him, that thought!  Marie-Louise was waiting, was
she not, upon the Perigeau--and when the tide was high and the sea was
calm one could row over the Perigeau, and sometimes see a _dragonet_,
with the beautiful blue and yellow marking on its white scaleless body,
looking for food in the rock crevices out of its curious eyes that were
in the top of its head!

A flicker of light!  Yes--yes--the lantern!  He was abreast of it
again.  The good God had not deserted him!  He was still strong--there
was iron in his arms again--the torture of pulling was gone.  He could
feel the boat lift now to the stroke.

He pulled, taking his breath in catchy sobs.  The boat swept downward
into a great trough, rose again, trembling, balancing on the next
crest--and the light had disappeared.  A cry gurgled from Jean's
throat, impotent, full of anguish.  It was an hallucination, a torture
of the devil!  No!  There it was once more--he caught it on the next
rise, and each succeeding one now.  And he, not it now, was making
headway seaward.  He was across the tide-race, it was the Madonna who
had prayed for him! and in another little while, soon now, just as soon
as the lantern showed a little further astern, he would get the lee of
the Perigeau itself--it would be broken water, but it would be like a
child's effort then.  And that!--what was that!

"Jean!"--it came ringing down with the wind, a brave, strong voice.
"_Jean!_"

It was Marie-Louise!  His strength was the strength of a god again.  He
shot a hurried glance over his shoulder--it was done--but one had need
for care that the boat should not thrash itself to pieces on the rocks.
Yes; he saw her now--like a dark, wind-swept wraith.

"To the right, Jean--there is landing to the right!" she called.

"Ay!" he shouted back; and, standing, swung in the boat.

The bow touched the edge of the rocks, grated, pounded, receded, and
came on again--there was no beach here--only the vicious swirl and chop
of the back-eddy.  But as the keel touched again, Jean sprang over into
the water; and as he sprang, a figure from the rocks rushed in waist
deep to grasp the boat's gunwale on the other side--and across the bow,
very close to him, Marie-Louise's white face was framed in the night.
It was very dark, he could not see her features distinctly, but he had
never seen Marie-Louise look like that before--it was not that her face
was aged, nothing, _bon Dieu_! could take the springtime from that
face, but it was very tired, and frightened, and glad, and full of
grief.

"Jean, ah, Jean, you--" the wind carried away her words.  Then she
shouted louder, a curious break, like a half sob, in her voice.  "Uncle
Gaston is hurt--very, very badly hurt.  He is up there a little way on
the reef.  You must carry him.  And if you hurry, Jean, I can hold the
boat."

"Gaston--hurt!" he cried in dismay.  "You are sure then you can hold
the boat, and--"

"Yes, yes, if you hurry, Jean--he is there, a few yards back, a little
to the left."

"Guard yourself then that it does not pull you off your feet!" he
cautioned anxiously, and began to scramble from the water and up the
slippery, weeded rocks.

And then, a few yards back on the ledge, as she had said, just out of
the reach of the spray that lashed the windward side of the Perigeau,
he came upon an outstretched form--and, kneeling, called the other's
name:

"Gaston!  It is I--Jean Laparde!"  He bent closer--one could not hear
for the _diable_ wind!  "Gaston!"  There was only a low moaning--the
man was unconscious.  "_'Cre nom d'une forte peine!_" muttered Jean,
with a sinking heart, and picked up the other tenderly in his arms.

But it was not easy, that little way back to the boat.  Burdened now,
the wind behind his back sent him staggering forward before he could
find footing, and ten times in the dozen steps he lurched, slipped and
all but fell before, close to the boat again, he laid Gaston down upon
the rocks.

"We must bale out the boat, Marie-Louise," he shouted, wading quickly
into the water; "or with what we take in on the way back she will not
ride.  See, I will hold it while you bale--it will be easier for you."

She answered something as she set instantly to work, but her words were
lost in the storm.  And Jean, through the darkness, as he gripped at
the boat, watched her, his mind a sea of turmoil like the turmoil of
the sea about him.  Gaston was hurt--yes, very badly hurt, it would
seem--how had it happened?--how had they come, Marie-Louise and Gaston,
to be upon the Perigeau?--and he, who had given up hope, who had
thought to perish out there in that crossing, he, too, was on the
Perigeau--the way to get back was to run straight in with the bay--it
would not be so hard if they could out-race the waves--if the waves
came in over the stern it would be to swamp and--God had been very good
to let them live and--

Marie-Louise's hand closed over his on the gunwale.

"It is done, Jean--what I could do," she said.  "I will hold the boat
again while you lift Uncle Gaston in."

And suddenly Jean's heart was very full.

"Marie-Louise, Marie-Louise!" he said hoarsely--and while her hands
grasped the rocking boat, his crept around the wet shoulders for an
instant, and to her face, and turned the face upward to his, and, in
that wild revelry of storm, kissed her; and with a choked sob he went
from her then and picked up the unconscious form upon the rocks.

And so they started back.

There was no sweep of tide to battle with now--the waves bore them high
and shot them onward, shoreward; and the storm was wings to them.  But
there was danger yet; on the top of the crests it was like a pivot,
each one threatening to whirl them broadside and capsize them on the
breathless rush down the steep slope that yawned below--that, and the
fear that the downward rush, breathless as it was, would not be fast
enough to escape the crest itself, which, following them always,
hanging over them like hesitant doom far up above, trembling, twisting,
writhing, might break in a seething torrent and, sweeping over them,
engulf them.  It was not so hard now, the way back, there was not the
pitiless current that numbed the soul because the body was so frail;
but all the craft Jean knew, all the strength that was his was in play
again.

The boat swept onward.  Marie-Louise was crouched in the stern
supporting Gaston's head upon her lap.  Jean could not see her face.
When he dared take his eyes for an instant from the racing waves behind
her, he looked at her, but he could not see her face--it was bent
always over Gaston's head.  And a fear grew heavy in Jean's heart--the
old fisherman had not moved since he, Jean, had found the other on the
reef.  Once he shouted at Marie-Louise, shouted out the fear that was
upon him--but she only shook her head.

The rain had stopped--he noticed the fact with a strange shock of
surprise--surprise that he had not noticed it before, as though it were
something extraneous to his surroundings.  And then he remembered that
as he had stood outside the Bas Rhone he had seen that the wind had
changed, and had told himself that by morning it would be better
weather.  He glanced above him.  The storm wrack was still there; but
it was broken now, and the low, flying clouds seemed thinner--yes, by
morning it would be bright sunshine, and of the storm only the heavy
sea would be left.

He gave his eyes to the tumbling waters again--and, suddenly, with a
great cry, began to pull until it seemed his arms must break.  Roaring
behind them, a giant wave was on the point of breaking--closer it
came--closer--he yelled to Marie-Louise:

"Hold fast, Marie-Louise!  Hold fast!"

And then it was upon them.

For a moment it was a vortex--a white, swirling flood of water churned
to lather.  It hid the stern of the boat, hid Marie-Louise and Gaston
at her feet, as it poured upon them--and the boat, lifted high up, hung
dizzily for an instant, poised as on the edge of an abyss, then the
wave rolled under them, and the boat swept on in its wake, the shipped
water rushing now this way now that in the bottom.

It was an escape!  The blessed saints still had them in their keeping!
Jean sucked in his breath.  A foot nearer when the wave had broken,
and, instead of the few bucketsful they had taken, the boat would have
filled!  And now Marie-Louise, already baling at the water, cried out
to him.

"See!  It was a mercy!"--her voice rang with a glad uplift.  "It was
sent by the _bon Dieu_, that wave!  It has brought life to Uncle
Gaston!"

It was true.  The deluge of water had, temporarily at least, restored
the old fisherman to consciousness, for he raised himself up now, and
Jean heard him speak.

After that, time marked no definite passing for Jean.  Occasionally he
heard Marie-Louise's voice as she spoke to her uncle; and occasionally
he heard the old fisherman reply--but that was all.  In nearer the
shore, where the current rushing through the narrows had lost its
potency, he edged the boat across the heavy sea, gained the comparative
calm under the lee of the headland, and began to work back to the upper
end--it was easier that way, difficult and slow as the progress was,
than to land and carry old Gaston along the beach.  An hour?  It might
have been that--or two--or half an hour--when he and Marie-Louise, in
the water beside him again, and close by where the lantern under the
bluff still burned as he had left it, were dragging the boat free from
the breakers and up upon the sand.

And then, while Marie-Louise ran for the lantern, Jean leaned over into
the boat.

"Gaston!" he called.  "See, we are back!  Can you hear me?"

"Yes," Gaston answered feebly.

"Then put your arms around my neck, _mon brave_, and I will lift you
up."

The arms rose slowly, clasped; and Jean, straightening up, was holding
the other as a woman holds a child.  Gaston's head fell on his
shoulder, and the old fisherman whispered weakly in his ear.

"My side, Jean--hold me--lower--down."

"But, yes," Jean answered cheerily.  "There--is that better.  We shall
get easily to the house like this, and Marie-Louise"--she was back
again now--"will lead the way with the lantern."

Gaston's only answer was a slight pressure of his arm around Jean's
neck--but now, as the lantern's rays for an instant fell upon the
other's features, Jean's own face set like stone.  The old fisherman's
eyes were closed, and the skin, where it showed through the grizzled
beard, wet and tangled now, was a deathly white--and Jean, motioning to
Marie-Louise, started hurriedly forward.

Only once on the way to the house, as Jean followed Marie-Louise up the
path from the beach, did Gaston speak again; and then it was as though
he were talking to himself, his tones low and broken, almost like the
sobbing of a child.  Jean caught the words.

"Rene--Rene, my brother--the light is out, Rene--the light is out."

And with the words, something dimmed suddenly before Jean's eyes, and
the path, for a moment, and Marie-Louise were as a mist in front of
him.  The light!  For fourteen years the man he held in his arms had
burned that light--and the light was out now forever.

He hurried on, and, reaching the house, laid Gaston on the bed in the
little room off the kitchen that belonged to the other; then turned
swiftly to Marie-Louise, for the old fisherman had lost consciousness
again.

"Cognac, Marie-Louise!" he said quickly.

She ran for the brandy--and while Jean forced a few drops through
Gaston's lips, holding up the lantern to watch the other, she went from
the room again and brought back a lamp.

"Jean," she cried pitifully, as she set it upon the table, "he is not--"

Jean shook his head.

"No; he will be better in a minute now.  It is but a little fainting
spell."

She did not answer--barefooted, the short skirt just reaching to the
ankles, her black hair, loosened, tumbling about her shoulders in a
sodden mass, she came a little closer to the bed, her hands clasped,
the dark eyes wide with troubled tenderness, the red lips parted, the
white cheeks still glistening with spray; and, unconscious of her pose,
the wet clothes, untrammelled in their simplicity, clinging closely to
her limbs and her young rounded bosom, revealed in chaste freedom the
perfect contour and beauty of her form.

Something stirred Jean's spirit within him, and for a moment he was
oblivious to his surroundings; for, as he looked, she seemed to stand
before him the living counterpart of a wondrous piece of sculpture, in
bronze it was, marvellously conceived, that he had dreamed of again and
again in vague, restless dreams--the statue, for it was always the same
statue in his dreams, that was set in the midst of a great city, in a
great square, and--

"Marie-Louise!" he said aloud unconsciously.

But she shook her head, pointing to the bed.

Gaston had stirred, and, opening his eyes now, fixing them on the glass
still held in Jean's hand, he motioned for more brandy.  And Jean, his
moment of abstraction gone as quickly as it had come, bent hastily
forward and gave it to him.

The raw spirit brought a flush to the old fisherman's cheeks.

"Father Anton," he said.  "Go for Father Anton."

"_Bien sur!_" responded Jean soothingly.  "I will go at once.  It was
what I thought of when I was carrying you up the beach.  I said: 'Since
there is no doctor in Bernay-sur-Mer, I will get Father Anton, who is
as good a doctor as he is a priest, and he will have Gaston here on his
feet again by morning.'"  He moved away from the bed--but Gaston put
out his hand and stopped him.

"Not you, Jean; I want to talk to you--Marie-Louise will go."

"Marie-Louise!" exclaimed Jean, shaking his head.  "But no!  You have
forgotten the storm, Gaston--and, see, she is all wet and tired, and
she has been, I do not know how many hours, exposed out there on that
cursed Perigeau."

A smile, half stubborn, half of pride, struggled through a twist of
pain on the old fisherman's lips.

"And what of that!  She has been brought up to it.  A dozen times and
more she has been longer in a storm than this.  She is not of the
milk-and-water breed is Marie-Louise, she is a Bernier, and, the _bon
Dieu_ be praised, the Berniers do not stop for that!  Is it not so,
Marie-Louise?"

"Yes, uncle," she answered softly.  "I will go; and I will not be long."

"Go then, Marie-Louise," he said.  "I wish it."

She bent and kissed him, and picked up the lantern, and shook her head
in a pretty gesture at Jean, as though half to tease him for the
perturbed look upon his face, and half in grave wistfulness to charge
him with the sick man's care--and then she went from the room, and
presently the front door closed behind her.

The lamp flickered with the inrush of wind from the opening of the
door--flickered over a spotless bare floor, an incongruous high-poster
bed that had been a wedding gift to Marie-Louise's father and mother
from the man who lay upon it now, flickered over the raftered ceiling,
the scant furnishings which were a single chair and a table, flickered
over a crucifix upon the wall--and then burned on once more in a steady
flame.  It was like the shrug of Jean's shoulders, the flicker of that
lamp; for, with the shrug, he resumed again his former position over
Gaston--it was true after all, Marie-Louise would come to no harm, they
were used to that, they fisherfolk of Bernay-sur-Mer.

"_Tiens_, Gaston!" he said.  "See, we will get off your wet clothes,
and you will tell me how it happened this _misere_, and about the hurt.
But first this--_mon Dieu!_--but I did not guess it was like that--a
clean bandage, eh?--that is first--I will find something"--he had
unbuttoned the other's jacket, disclosing a rent shirt, and, on the
left side, a wad of cloth, blood-soaked now, where Marie-Louise
evidently had made a pad for the wound with her underskirt, and had
tied it in place with long strips torn from the garment.  He began to
loosen one of the strips; but Gaston, who until then had lain passive
with eyes closed, caught his hand.

"Let it alone, Jean--you will only make it bleed the more."

"Ay," agreed Jean thoughtfully; "perhaps that is so.  It would be
better maybe to leave it for Father Anton."

A wan smile came to Gaston's lips.

"Father Anton will not touch it either, Jean."

And then Jean, with a sudden start, stared into the other's eyes.

"It is destiny!" said Gaston slowly.  "Did you, too, like Marie-Louise,
think it was for that I sent for the good father?  It is the priest and
Mother Church I need, there is no doctor that could help."

"But, no!" Jean protested anxiously.  "You must not talk like that,
Gaston!  It is not so!  Wait!  You will see!  Father Anton will tell
you that in a few days you will be strong again.  It is the weakness
now."

Gaston shook his head.

"You are a brave man, Jean, but I, too, am brave--and I am not
afraid--not afraid for myself--it is for Marie-Louise--it is for that I
kept you here and sent her for Father Anton.  I know--something is hurt
inside--I am bleeding there."

And now Jean made no answer--no words would come.  The utter weakness
in the voice, the feeble movements of the hands, the greyer pallor in
the other's face seemed to dawn upon him with its full significance for
the first time--and for a moment it seemed to stun and bewilder him.

"It is destiny!" said Gaston again.  "Listen!  It is fourteen years
since Rene, my brother, Marie-Louise's father, was drowned on the
Perigeau.  I swore that night that through neither God nor devil should
another lose his life as Rene had--and for fourteen years I burned the
light, and laughed at the Perigeau as it gnawed its teeth in the
storms."  He stopped, and touched his lips with the tip of his tongue.
"It is the hand of God," he whispered hoarsely, "The light is out--and
it is the Perigeau again."

Jean pulled the chair closer to the bed, and took one of Gaston's hands.

"It means nothing that, Gaston," he said, trying to control his voice.
"It is bad to think such thoughts--and of what good are they?  You must
not think of that.  Tell me what happened, how you and Marie-Louise
came to be out there to-night."

Gaston lay quiet for a little while--so long that Jean thought the
other had not heard the question.  Then the old fisherman spoke again.

"Marie-Louise will tell you.  I have other things to say, and I have
not strength enough for all.  It is hard to talk.  Give me the cognac
again, Jean."

He drank almost greedily this time, and, as Jean held up his head that
he might do so the more readily, the grim old lips and unflinching eyes
smiled back their thanks.

"Listen to me well, Jean," he went on earnestly.  "Marie-Louise is very
dear to me.  I love the little girl.  All her life she has lived with
me--for two years after she was born in this house here, her mother and
Rene and I--and two years more with Rene and I--and then, after that,
it was just Marie-Louise and I alone.  She had no one else--and I had
no one else.  I have taught her as the _bon Dieu_ has shown me the way
to teach her to be a true daughter of France--to love God and be never
afraid.  Jean"--he reached out his other hand suddenly and clasped it
over Jean's--"do you love Marie-Louise?"

"Yes," said Jean simply.

"She will be alone now," said Gaston, and his eyes filled.  "She is a
good girl, Jean.  She is pure and innocent, and her heart is so full of
love, there was never such love as hers, and she is so gay and bright
like the flowers and like the birds--and happy--and sorrow has not come
to her."  He stopped once more, and the grey eyes searched Jean's face
as though they would read to the other's soul.  "Jean," he asked again,
"do you love Marie-Louise?"

Jean's lips were quivering now.

"Yes," he answered.  "You know I love her."

The old fisherman lay back, silent, still for a moment, but he kept
pressing Jean's hand.  When he spoke again, it seemed that it was with
more of an effort.

"This house, the land, the boats, the nets, they are hers--it is her
_dot_.  But it is not of that, I fear--it is not of that--" his voice
died away.  Again he was silent; and then, suddenly, raising himself on
his elbow: "Jean," he asked for the third time, almost fiercely now,
"do you love Marie-Louise?"

"But yes, Gaston," said Jean gently.  "I have loved her all my life."

"Yes; it is so," Gaston muttered slowly.  "I give her to you then,
Jean--she is a gift to you from the sea--from the sea to-night.  She
loves you, Jean--she has told me so.  You will be good to her, Jean?"

The tears were in Jean's eyes.

"Gaston, can you ask it?" he cried out brokenly.

"Ay!" said Gaston, and his voice rang out in a strange, stern note, and
his form, as he lifted himself up once more, seemed to possess again
its old rugged strength.  "Ay--I do more than ask it.  Swear it, Jean!
To a dying man and in God's presence, see, there is a crucifix there,
swear that you will guard her and that you will let no harm come to
her."

"I swear it, Gaston," said Jean, in a choking voice.

"It is well, then," Gaston murmured--and lay back upon the bed.

For a little while, Jean, dim-eyed, watched the other, a hundred
reminiscences of their work together stabbing at his heart, and then he
rose and began to remove what he could of the old fisherman's clothing.

"I will not touch the wound, Gaston," he said; "but the boots, _mon
brave_, and--"

Gaston did not answer.  He appeared to have sunk into a semi-stupor,
from which even the removal of his clothes did not arouse him.  Jean
pulled a blanket up around the other's form, and sat down again in the
chair.

Once, as Gaston muttered, Jean leaned forward toward the other.

"It is destiny--the Perigeau--the light is out--Rene, it is--"  The
words trailed off into incoherency.

The minutes passed.  Occasionally, with a spoon now, Jean poured a few
drops of brandy between Gaston's lips; otherwise, he sat there, his
head in his hands, tight-lipped, staring at the floor.  Outside, that
vicious howl of wind seemed to have died away--perhaps it was hushed
because old Gaston was like this--Marie-Louise had been gone a long
time--presently she and Father Anton would be back, and--

He looked up to find Gaston's eyes open and fixed upon him feverishly,
the lips struggling to say something.

"What is it, Gaston?" he asked.

"The light, Jean," Gaston whispered.  "It is--for--the last time.  Go
and--light--the--great lamp."

"Yes, Gaston," Jean answered, and went from the room--but at the door
he covered his face with his hands, and his shoulders shook like a
child whose heart is broken, as his feet in that outer room crunched on
the shattered glass of the lamp that would never burn again.  He dashed
the tears from his eyes, and for a moment stared unseeingly before him,
then turned and went back to Gaston's side again in the inner room.

Gaston's eyes searched his face eagerly.

"It burns?" he cried out.

"It burns," said Jean steadily.

And Gaston smiled, and the stupor fell upon him again.

And then after a long time Jean heard footsteps without, then the
opening of the front door--and then it seemed to Jean that a
benediction had fallen upon the room.

Framed in the doorway, a little worn black bag in his hand, his
_soutane_ splashed high with mud though it was caught up now around his
waist with a cord, stood Father Anton, the beloved of all
Bernay-sur-Mer.  And, as he stood there and the kindly blue eyes
searched the figure on the bed, the fine old face, under its crown of
silver hair, grew very grave--and without moving from his position he
beckoned to Jean.

"Jean, my son," he said softly, "make our little Marie-Louise here put
on dry clothing.  I will be a little while with Gaston alone."

Marie-Louise was standing behind the priest.  Father Anton stepped
aside for Jean to pass--and then the door dosed quietly.

"Jean!"--she caught his arm.  "Jean tell me!"

Jean did not answer--there were no words with which to answer her.

"Oh, Jean!" she said--and a little sob broke her voice.

"Go and put on dry things, Marie-Louise," he said.

"No--not now," she answered.  "Give me your hand."

They stood there in the darkness.  He felt her hand tremble.  Neither
spoke.  Father Anton's voice, in a low, constant murmur, came to them
now.

Her hand tightened.

"I know," she said.  "It is the Sacrament."

"He said he had taught you to be never afraid," said Jean.

Her hand tightened again.

It was a long while.  And then the door behind them opened, and Father
Anton came between them, and drew Marie-Louise's head to his bosom and
stroked her hair, and placed his other arm around Jean's shoulders--and
for a moment he stood like that--and then he drew them to the window.

"See, my children," he said gently, "there are the stars, and there is
peace after the storm.  It is so with sorrow, for out of the blackness
of grief God brings us comfort in His own good pleasure.  He has called
Gaston home."




-- II --

THE BEACON

It was half clay, half mud; but out of it one could fashion the little
_poupees_, the dolls for the children.  They would not last very long,
it was true; but then one fashioned them quickly, and there was delight
in making them.

Jean dug a piece of the clay with his sheaf knife, leaned over from the
bank of the little creek, and moistened it in the water.  He dug
another, moistened that, moulded the two together--and Marie-Louise
smiled at him a little tremulously, as their eyes met.

The tears were very near to those brave dark eyes since three days ago.
Jean mechanically added a third piece of clay to the other two.  Much
had happened in those three days--all Bernay-sur-Mer seemed changed
since that afternoon when Gaston, so Marie-Louise had told him, seeing
a boat adrift and fearing there might be some one in it, had tried
during a lull in the storm to reach it with her assistance, and an oar
had broken, and the tide on the ebb had driven them close to the
Perigeau where they had swamped, and somehow Gaston had been flung upon
the outer edges of the reef, and the boat, sodden, weighted, following,
had crushed him against the rocks.

Jean looked at Marie-Louise again.  She was all in black now--she and
good Mother Fregeau had made the dress between them for the church that
morning, when Father Anton had said the mass for Gaston.  But
Marie-Louise was not looking at him--her elbows were on the ground, her
chin was cupped in her hands, and the long black lashes veiled her
eyes.  She had not told him any more of the story--Jean could picture
that for himself.  How many times must she have risked her life to have
pulled Gaston to the rocks higher up upon the reef!  A daughter of
France, Gaston had called her.  _Bon Dieu_, but she was that, with her
courage and her strength!  One would not think the strength was there,
but then the black dress did not cling like the wet clothes that other
night to show the litheness of the rounded limbs.

His fingers began to work into the clay, unnaturally diffident and
hesitant at first, not with the deft certainty of their custom, but as
though groping tentatively for something that was curiously intangible,
that eluded them.  Marie-Louise, as she had been that night, was living
before him again--the lines of her form so full of grace and so
beautiful, so full of the virility of her young womanhood, the shapely
head, the hair streaming in abandon about her shoulders--and it was
like and yet not like that great bronze statue so often in his dreams,
imaginary and yet so real, that was set in the midst of that great city
in a great square.  And then suddenly, strangely, of their own
volition, it seemed, his fingers, where they had been hesitant before,
began now to work with a sure swiftness.

His eyes were drinking in the contour of Marie-Louise's face in a rapt,
eager, subconscious way.  There was something deeper there than the
mere prettiness of feature, something that was impressing itself in an
absorbing, insistent way upon him.  Her face made him think of the face
of that statue--there was a hint of masculinity that brought with it no
coarseness, nor robbed it of its sweetness or its charm, but like that
massive face of bronze that towered high, that people with uplifted
heads stood and gazed upon, that none passed by without a pause,
stamped it with calm fearlessness; and courage and resolve outshone all
else and alone was dominant there.

Marie-Louise sat up suddenly from the ground and turned toward him, her
brows gathered in a pretty, puzzled way.

"Why do you look at me like that, Jean?" she demanded abruptly.  "And
what are you doing there?  It is not the doll you promised to make for
little Ninon Lachance--it is much too big."  She leaned forward.  "What
are you making?"

"_Ma foi_!" Jean muttered, with a little start--and stared at the lump
of clay.  "I--I do not know."

"Well, then," said Marie-Louise gravely, "don't do any more.  I want to
talk to you, Jean."

"How, not do any more!" protested Jean whimsically.  "Was it not you
who said, 'We will go to the creek this afternoon and make _poupees_'?
And look"--he jerked his hand toward a large basket on the ground
beside him--"to do that I shall perhaps not keep my promise to meet the
_Lucille_ when she comes in and bring a panier of fish to Jacques
Fregeau at the Bas Rhone.  And now you say, 'Don't do any more'!"

"Yes; I know," admitted Marie-Louise.  "But I want to talk to you.
Listen, Jean.  To-morrow Mother Fregeau must go back to the Bas Rhone.
She has been too long away in her kindness now.  You know how she came
to me the next morning after Uncle Gaston died, and put her arms around
me and has stayed ever since."

Jean shifted the lump of clay a little away from Marie-Louise, but his
fingers still worked on.

"She has a heart of gold," asserted Jean.  "Who should know any better
than I, who have lived with her all these years?"

Marie-Louise's eyes travelled slowly in a half tender, half pensive way
over Jean.  His coat was off; the loose shirt was open at the neck
displaying the muscular shoulders, and the sleeves were rolled up over
the brown, tanned arms; the powerful hands, powerful for all their
long, slim, tapering fingers, worked on and on; the black hair
clustered truantly, as it always did, over the broad, high forehead.
She had known Jean all her life, as many years as she could remember,
and her love for him was very deep.  It had come to seem her life, that
love; and each night in her prayers she had asked the _bon Dieu_ to
bless and take care of Jean, and to make her a good wife to him when
that time should come.  It was so great, that love, that sometimes it
frightened her--somehow it was frightening her now, for there was a
side to Jean that, well as she knew him, she felt intuitively she had
never been able to understand.

She spoke abruptly again, a little absently.

"I do not know yet what I am to do.  There is the house, and Father
Anton says I must not live there alone."

"But, no!" agreed Jean.  "Of course not!  That is what I say, too.  It
is all the more reason why we should not wait any longer, you and I,
Marie-Louise."

A tinge of colour crept shyly into Marie-Louise's face, as she shook
her head.

"No; we must wait, Jean.  It is too soon after--after poor Uncle
Gaston."

"But it was Gaston's wish, that," persisted Jean gently.  "Have I not
told you what he said, _petite_?"

Again Marie-Louise shook her head.

"But one is sad for all that," she answered.  "And to go to the church,
Jean, when one is sad, when one should go so happy!  Oh, I want to be
happy then, Jean.  I do not want to think of anything that day but only
you, Jean--and sing, and there must be sunshine and fete.  But now, for
a little while, it is Uncle Gaston.  You do not think that wrong?"

"No," said Jean slowly, "it is not wrong, and I understand; but then,
too, Gaston would understand, for it was his wish."

Marie-Louise bent forward with a strange little impulsive movement.

"That is twice you have said that, Jean," she said.  "I--I almost wish
Uncle Gaston had not said what he did to you that night.  Jean, it--it
is not what he said, nor what you said to him.  That must not make any
difference.  Never, never, Jean!  One does not marry for that--it is
only if there is love."

"_Mais, 'cre nom_!" exclaimed Jean, suddenly setting aside his clay and
catching Marie-Louise's face between his hands.  "Why do you talk like
that?  What queer fancies are in that little head?  Now, tell me"--he
kissed her lips, while the blood rushed crimson to her cheeks--"tell
me, is that not answer enough?  And have we not loved each other long
before that night, and does not all Bernay-sur-Mer know that it will
dance at the _noces_?"

"Yes," whispered Marie-Louise, a little breathlessly.

"Ah, then," said Jean tenderly, "you must not talk like that.  What,
Marie-Louise, if I should say to myself, 'now perhaps Marie-Louise has
not loved me all these years, and--'"

She drew hurriedly away.

"Don't, Jean!" she said quickly.  "It hurts, that!  I love you so much
that sometimes I am afraid.  And to-day I am afraid.  I do not know
why.  And sometimes it is so different.  That night on the reef when I
thought that soon the rocks would be covered and that there was no help
for Uncle Gaston and myself, and that no one could come to us even if
we were seen, I saw your lantern and the _bon Dieu_ told me it was you
and I had no more fear.  I was so sure then--so sure then.  Oh, Jean,
you must be very good to me to-day.  It--it was so hard"--the dark eyes
were swimming now with tears--"to say good-bye to Uncle Gaston.
Perhaps it is that that is making me feel so strangely.  But sometimes
it seems as though it could never be, the great happiness for you and
me, it is so great to think about that--that it frightens me.  And I
have wanted to talk to you about it, Jean, often and often.  Does it
make you very glad and happy, too, to think of just you and me together
here, and our home, and the fishing, and--and years and years of it?"

"But, yes; of course!" smiled Jean; and, picking up the clay again,
began to scrape at it with his knife.

"But are you sure, Jean?"--there was a little tremor in her voice.  "I
do not mean so much that you are sure you love me, but that you are
sure you would always be happy to stay here in Bernay-sur-Mer.  You are
not like the other men."

"How not like them?" Jean demanded, surveying in an absorbed sort of
way the little clay figure that was taking on rough outline now.  "How
not like them?"

"Well--that!"--Marie-Louise pointed at the clay in his hands.  "That,
for one thing--that you are always playing with, that it seems you
cannot put aside for an instant, even though I asked you to a moment
ago.  You are always making the _poupees_, and if not the _poupees_
with mud and dirt, then you must waste the inside of Mother Fregeau's
loaves that she bakes herself, or steal the dough before it reaches the
oven to keep your fingers busy making little faces and droll things out
of it."

Jean looked up to stare at Marie-Louise a little perplexedly.

"_Mais, zut_!" he exclaimed.  "And what of that!  And if I amuse myself
that way, what of that?  It is nothing!"

"Nevertheless," Marie-Louise insisted, nodding her head earnestly, "it
is true what I have said--that you are not like the other men in
Bernay-sur-Mer.  Do you think that I have not watched you, Jean?  And
have you not said little things to show that you grow tired of the
fishing?"

"But that is true of everybody," Jean protested.  "Does not Father
Anton say that all the world is poor because there is none in it who is
contented?  And if I grumble sometimes, do not all the others do the
same?  Pierre Lachance will swear to you twice every hour that the
fishing is a dog's life."

She shook her head.

"It is different," she said.  "You are not Pierre Lachance, Jean, and I
want you to be happy all your life--that is what I ask the _bon Dieu_
for always in my prayers.  And I do not know why these thoughts come,
and I do not understand them, only I know that they are there."

"Then--_voila_!  We will drive them away, and they must never come
back!" Jean burst out, half gaily, half gravely.  "See, now,
Marie-Louise"--he caught her hand in both of his, putting aside the
lump of clay again--"it is true that sometimes I am like that, and I do
not understand either; but one must take things as they are, is that
not so?"

She nodded--a little doubtfully.

"Well, then," cried Jean, "why should I not be happy here?  Have I not
you, and is that not most of all?  And as for the rest, do I not do
well with the fishing?  Is there any who does better?  Do they not
speak of the luck of Jean Laparde?  _'Cre nom_!  Different from the
others!  Who is a fisherman if it is not I, who have been a fisherman
all my life?  And of what good is it to wish for anything else?  What
else, even if I wanted to, could I do?  I do not know anything else but
the boats and the nets.  Is it not so, Marie-Louise?"

"Y-yes," she said, and her eyes lifted to meet his.

"And happy!" he went on.  "Ah, Marie-Louise, with those bright eyes of
yours that belong all to me, who could be anything but happy?  _Tiens_!
You are to be my little wife, and Bernay-sur-Mer and the blue water is
to be our home, and we will fish together, and you shall sing all day
in the boat, and--well, what more is there to ask for?"

"Oh, Jean!"--she was smiling now.

"There, you see!" said Jean, and burst out laughing.  "Marie-Louise is
herself again, and--_pouf_!--the blue devils are blown away.  And now
wait until I have finished this, and I will show you something"--he
picked up the clay once more.  "Only you must not look until it is
done."

"Mustn't I?  Oh!"--with a little _moue_ of resignation.  "Well, then,
hurry, Jean," she commanded, and cupped her chin in her hands again,
her elbows propped upon the ground.

It was playfully that Jean turned his back upon her, hiding his work,
but as his fingers began again to draw and model the clay and his knife
to chisel it, the smile went slowly from his face and his lips grew
firmly closed.  It was strange that Marie-Louise should have known!  It
was true, the fishing grew irksome too often now; for those moods, like
the mood in the storm, came very often, much more often than they had
been wont to do.  He had laughed at her, but that was only to pretend,
to chase the sadness away and make her eyes shine again.  It was true,
too, as he had told her, that one must take things as they were.
Whether he wanted to fish or not, he must fish--_voila_!  How else
could one make the _sous_ with which to live?

Oh, yes, he had laughed to make her laugh; but now, _pardieu_! it was
bringing that mood upon himself.  Where was that great city and that
great square, and what was that great statue before which the people
stood rapt and spellbound, and why should it come so often to his
thoughts and be so real as though it were a very truth and not some
queer imagination of his brain?  There were wonderful things in the
face of that bronze figure.  He leaned a little forward toward the clay
before him, his lips half parted now, his fingers seeming to tingle
with a life, throbbing, palpitant, that was all their own, that was
apart from him entirely, for they possessed a power of movement and a
purpose that he had nothing to do with.  He became absorbed in his
work, lost in it.  Time passed.

"Jean," Marie-Louise called out, "let me see it now."

"Wait!" he said almost harshly.  "Wait!  Wait!  Wait!"

"_Jean_!"--it was a hurt little cry.

He did not hear her.  There was something at the base of that statue of
his dreams that always troubled him, that the people always pointed at
as they gazed; but he had never been able to make out what it was there
at the base of the statue.  It was very strange that he was never able
to see that, when he could see the figure of the woman with the
wonderful face so plainly!

He worked on and on.  There were neither hours nor minutes--the
afternoon deepened.  There was no creek, no Marie-Louise, no
Bernay-sur-Mer, nothing--only those dreams and the little clay figure
in his hands.

And then Marie-Louise, her face a little white, timidly touched his arm.

"Jean!" she said hesitantly.

Her voice roused him.  It seemed as though he was awakened from a
sleep.  He brushed the hair back from his eyes, and looked around.

"_Mon Dieu_," he said, "but that was, strange!"  And then he smiled,
still a little dazed, and lifted around the clay figure for her to see.
"I do not know if it is finished," he said, staring at it; "but perhaps
I could do no better with it even if I worked longer."

Marie-Louise's eyes, puzzled, anxious, on Jean's face, shifted to the
little clay figure--and their expression changed instantly.

"But, Jean!" she cried, clasping her hands.  "But, Jean, that is not a
_poupee_ you have made there.  It--it will never do at all!  Ninon
Lachance would break the arms off at the first minute, and it is too
_charmante_ for that.  Oh, but, Jean, it--it is _adorable_!"

Jean was inspecting the figure in a curiously abstracted way, as though
he had never seen it before, turning his head now to this side, now to
that, and turning the clay around and around in his hands to examine it
from all angles, while a heightened colour crept into his face and dyed
his cheeks.  It was a small figure, hardly a foot and a half in
height--the figure of a fisherwoman, barefooted, in short skirts, the
clothes as though windswept clinging close around her limbs, her arms
stretched out as to the sea.  He laughed a little unnaturally.

"Well, then, since it will not do for Ninon Lachance, and you like it,
Marie-Louise," he said a little self-consciously; "it is for you."

"For me--Jean?  Really for me?" she asked happily.

"And why not?" said Jean.  "Since it _is_ you."

"Me!"--she looked at him in a prettily bewildered way.

"But, yes," said Jean, holding the figure off at arm's length.  "See,
it is a beacon--the welcome of the fisherman home from the sea.  And
are you not that, Marie-Louise, and will you not stand on the shore at
evening and hold out your arms for me as I pull home in the boat?  Are
you not the beacon, Marie-Louise--for me?"

Her hand stole over one of his and pressed it, but it was a moment
before she spoke.

"I will pray to the _bon Dieu_ to make me that, Jean--always," she said
softly.

He drew her close to him.

"It is the luck of Jean Laparde!" he whispered tenderly.

They sat for a little time in silence--then Jean sprang sharply to his
feet.

"_Ma foi_, Marie-Louise!" he called out in sudden consternation,
glancing at the sun.  "I did not know we had been here so long."  He
picked up the little clay figure hastily, placed it in the basket,
threw his coat, that was on the ground, over it, and, swinging the
basket to the crook of his arm, held out his hand to Marie-Louise.
"Come, _petite_, we will hurry back."

It was not far across the fields and down the little rise to the road
that paralleled the beach; and in some five minutes, walking quickly,
they came out upon the road itself by the turn near the rough wooden
bridge that crossed the creek halfway between the eastern headland and
the white, clustering cottages of Bernay-sur-Mer.  But here, for all
their hurry, they paused suddenly of one accord, looking at each other
questioningly, as voices reached them from the direction of the bridge
which, still hidden from their view, was just around the bend of the
road ahead.

      *      *      *      *      *

"But, my dear"--it was a man speaking, his tone a sort of tolerant
protest--"I am sure it is just the place we have been looking for.  It
is quiet here."

"Quiet!"--it was a woman's voice this time, in a wealth of irony.  "It
is stagnation!  There isn't a single thing alive here--even the sea is
dead!  It is enough to give one the blues for the rest of one's life!
And the accommodations at that unspeakable tavern are absolutely
appalling.  I can't imagine what you are dreaming of to want to stay
another minute!  I'm quite sure there are lots of other places that
will furnish all the rest and quiet required, and where, at the same
time, we can at least be comfortable.  Anyway, I'm not going to stay
here!"

"But, Myrna, you--"

"There is some one coming," said the girl.

      *      *      *      *      *

Jean and Marie-Louise were walking forward again.

"What are they saying, Jean?" asked Marie-Louise.

Jean shook his head.

"I do not know," he answered.  "It is English.  See!  There they are!"

An elderly, well-dressed man, grey-haired, clean-shaven, a little
stout, with a wholesomely good-natured, ruddy face, was leaning against
the railing of the bridge; and beside him, digging at the planks with
the tip of her parasol, stood a girl in dainty white, her head bent
forward, her face hidden under the wide brim of a picture hat.

Jean's eyes, attracted as by a magnet, passed over the man and fixed
upon the girl.  At Nice, at Monte Carlo, so they said, one saw many
such as she; but Bernay-sur-Mer was neither Nice nor Monte Carlo, and
he had never seen a woman gowned like that before.  _'Cre nom_, what
exquisite harmony of line and poise!  If she would but look up!  _Bon
Dieu_, but it would be a desecration of the picture if she were not
gloriously pretty!

The gentleman, nodding pleasantly, greeted them as they approached.

"Good afternoon!" he said smilingly, in French.

The girl had raised her head, grey eyes sweeping Marie-Louise with well
bred indifference--and Jean was staring at her.

"_Bon jour, m'sieu_!"--he spoke mechanically, lifted his cap
mechanically.

His eyes had not left the girl's face.  He could not take his eyes from
her face.  It was a wonderful face, a beautiful face, and something in
it thrilled him and bade him feast his eyes upon it to drink in its
beauty.  And, his head thrown back exposing the bare rugged neck, the
broad, sturdy shoulders unconsciously squared a little, the fine, dark
eyes wide with admiration and a strange, keen appraisement, the
splendid physique, the strength, the power and vigour of young manhood
outstanding in face and form, he gazed at her.  And her eyes, from
Marie-Louise, met his, and from them faded their expression of
indifference, and into them came something Jean could not define, only
that as the blood rushed suddenly unbidden to his face and he felt it
hot upon his cheeks, he saw the colour ebb from hers to a queer
whiteness--and then her hat hid her face again--and he had passed by.

It was as though his veins were running fire.  He glanced at
Marie-Louise.  Shyly diffident in the presence of strangers, her head
was lowered.  She had seen nothing.  Seen nothing!  Seen what?  He did
not know.  His blood was tingling, his brain was confusion.

He walked on, hurrying unconsciously.

It was Marie-Louise who spoke.

"They are of the _grand monde_," she said in a sort of wondering
excitement, when they were out of ear-shot.

"Yes," said Jean absently.

"And English or American."

"Yes," said Jean.

"But the rich people do not come to Bernay-sur-Mer where there is no
amusement for them," she submitted with a puzzled air.  "I wonder what
they are going to do here?"

Jean's eyes were on the road.  He did not raise them.

"Who knows!" said Jean Laparde.




-- IV --

STRANGERS WITHIN THE GATES

"Until to-morrow"--the words kept echoing in Jean's ears, as he hurried
now on his way back to the Bas Rhone.  "Until to-morrow"--Marie-Louise
had called to him, as he had left the house on the bluff after taking
her home.  Well, what was there unusual in that!  Though he went often,
he did not go to see Marie-Louise every evening, and it was not the
first time she had ever said it.  Why should he be vaguely conscious of
a sort of relief that she had said "until to-morrow" on this particular
occasion?  It was a very strange way to feel--but then his mind was in
the most curiously jumbled state!  That meeting at the bridge of less
than half an hour ago obsessed him.  Where had they come from, these
strangers?  How long were they going to stay?  Or, perhaps--an
unaccountable dismay suddenly seized him--perhaps they had already
gone!  But Papa Fregeau, of course, would know all that--therefore,
naturally, he was impatient to reach the Bas Rhone and Papa Fregeau.

The empty basket on his arm, for Marie-Louise had taken the beacon and
he had forgotten all about Papa Fregeau's fish, Jean paused as he
reached the bridge.  It was here that look had passed between them.  He
would never forget that.  It meant nothing--he was not a fool--it could
mean nothing.  It was only a look, only an instant in which those grey
eyes had met his--but he would never forget it!

He hurried on again.

Perhaps he had imagined that expression, that flash, that spark, that
something that was impellingly magnetic in those grey eyes.  No, he had
not imagined it; he had felt it, known it, sensed it.  In that one
instant something had passed between them that in all his life he would
never forget--it had left him like a man adrift on a shoreless sea with
the startling wonder of it.  She was of the _grand monde_--Marie-Louise
had said it.  And he was a fisherman.  She could have no interest in a
fisherman; and what interest could a fisherman--bah, it was pitifully
laughable!  But it was not laughable!  If he could only define that
look!  It was as if--_bon Dieu_, what was it!--as if she were a woman
and he were a man.  Yes; it was that!  It was only for a moment, by now
she would have forgotten it; but for that moment it had been that.
Only, whereas she would have forgotten, with him it remained.  It was
curious--her form was even more like that dream statue than was
Marie-Louise's.  If by any chance she should already have gone!  The
thought, recurring, brought once more that twinge of dismay.  Was it
strange that he should want to see her again!  True, she would never
look at him like that a second time, she had been off her guard for
that little instant when there had been no _grand monde_ and no
fisherman, but she was still the same beautiful woman, glorious in form
and face--and the allurement of her presence was like some rare,
exquisite fragrance stealing upon the senses, enslaving them.

And now, as he approached the little village, and passed the first
cottage, with the Bas Rhone in sight beyond, he found himself eagerly
searching the beach, the single street for sign of her.  But there was
no sign.  Everything about the village was as it always was every early
evening in Bernay-sur-Mer, when it was summer and the light held late.
Strewn out along the beach, the men were at work upon their boats and
nets; the children played about the doorways; through the open doors
one could see the women busy over the evening meal--nothing else!  And
surely there would have been some stir of excitement if the strangers
were still there, at least amongst the children--it was an event, that,
to Bernay-sur-Mer.  They had gone then, evidently!

Jean's eyes lifted from a fruitless sweep of the beach to fix on the
figure of Papa Fregeau emerging on the run from the Bas Rhone.

"The fish, Jean!  The fish!" the fat little man called out breathlessly.

"The fish?" repeated Jean--and then, a little sheepishly, stared into
the empty basket.

Papa Fregeau, who had reached Jean's side, was staring into it too.

"Yes--the fish!  The fish!" he shouted.  "Where are the fish you
promised to bring back?"

And then Jean laughed.

"Why," said Jean, "I--I think I must have forgotten them."

Papa Fregeau was excited.  He began to dance up and down, his fat
paunch shaking like jelly.

"Idiot!  Imbecile!" he stormed.  "Have I not had trouble enough without
this!  _Sacre bleu de misericorde_!  What an afternoon!  And you
laugh--_bete_, that you are!  And now what shall I do?"

"Do?" said Jean---and stopped laughing.  "What is the matter?"

"Matter!" spluttered the patron of the Bas Rhone.  "Matter!  Have I not
told you what is the matter?  The fish!"

"Yes, but a few fish," said Jean, eyeing the other in a half puzzled
way.  "What are a few fish that you--"

"You do not understand!"--Papa Fregeau was still dancing up and down as
he kept step with Jean, who had now started on again toward the Bas
Rhone.  "Listen!  They are Americans of Paris, they say!  They arrive
in an automobile this afternoon--mademoiselle and her father, the maid
and the chauffeur.  It is fine, they stop at the Bas Rhone and engage
rooms.  Excellent!  Nothing could be better.  There is profit in that.
I carry the trunks, the valises, a multitude of effects that are
strapped all over the automobile to the rooms, and am on the point of
sending for Mother Fregeau at Marie-Louise's.  _Sapristi_--I do not
pretend to be a cook!  They start out for a walk, the mademoiselle and
her father--and the mademoiselle, before they are out of sight from the
window, returns to say that they will not stay, that I shall repack
everything on that accursed car in readiness for their departure on the
return from their walk.  _Tourment de Satan_!--very good, I repack it.
And now you bring no fish!"

Jean shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, since they are gone, what does it matter?"

"Gone!  _Tonnerre_!"--Papa Fregeau's face was apoplectic, and his fat
cheeks puffed in and out like toy balloons.  "Gone!  Have I not told
you that they are not gone!"

"You have told me nothing"--there was a sudden, quick interest in
Jean's voice.  "They are gone--and they are not gone!  What are you
talking about?"

"I do not know what I am talking about!" snapped Papa Fregeau fiercely.
"How should I know!  It is first this, then that, then this, then
that--it is a _badauderie_!  She is crazy, the girl; the father is no
better; the maid, Nanette, is a hussy.  She slapped my face when I but
paid her a pretty compliment; and Jules, the chauffeur, is a pig who
lies on his back under the infernal machine and will not lift a finger
with the baggage.  Wait!  Listen!  Come here!"  He pulled Jean in
through the door and across the cafe to the bar at the far end of the
room, where he hastily decanted a glass of cognac and tossed it off.
"See!  Listen!" he went on excitedly, replenishing his glass.  "I
repack everything on the machine again, which is out there behind the
tavern.  I climb the stairs and I descend the stairs three dozen times,
there is always one more package.  And then fifteen minutes ago
mademoiselle returns from her walk alone, and waves her
hands--_pouf_!--just like that--and she says: 'Monsieur Fregeau, we
will stay; take the baggage back to the rooms!'  _C'est insupportable,
ca_!"  Papa Fregeau flung out his arms in abandoned despair.  "And now
there is no supper for them.  _Sapristi_, I am no cook; but I could
cook fish if you, _miserable_ that you are, had brought them--heh!  And
it is too late now to send for Mother Fregeau."

Jean was paying but slender attention.  They had not gone!  They were
going to stay!

"Get Madame Lachance, next door, to help you," he said absently.  Then
abruptly: "Mademoiselle returned alone, you say--and what of monsieur,
her father?"

Papa Fregeau made a gulp at his second glass.

"He is impossible!" he choked.  "With him it is the sunset!  Who ever
heard of such a thing!  He is on the beach to gaze at the sunset!  _Nom
d'un nom_, is it extraordinary that the sun should set!  But it is not
him, it is mademoiselle.  I am sure he knows nothing of all this, and
concerns himself less.  It is mademoiselle's doing.  And I have had
enough!  I will not any longer be made a fool of!"  He banged his pudgy
fist on the _comptoir_.  "Is it to stand on my head that I am patron of
the Bas Rhone!  _Sacre bleu_!  I will not support it!  I tell you that
I will not--"  Papa Fregeau's mouth remained wide open.

"Monsieur Fregeau!" a voice called softly in excellent French from the
rear door.  "Nanette is struggling with a valise on the back stairs
that is much too heavy for her, and perhaps if you--"

Papa Fregeau's mouth closed, opened again--and, in his haste to make a
bow, the cognac glass became a shower of tinkling splinters on the
floor.

"But _immediatement_!  Instantly, Mademoiselle!" cried Papa Fregeau
effusively.  "On the moment!  A valise that is too heavy for her!  It
is a sacrilege!  It is unpardonable!  Instantly, Mademoiselle, on the
instant!  On the moment!"--and he rushed from the room.

She stood in the doorway; and, from under bewitchingly half closed
lids, the grey eyes met Jean's.  And under her gaze that was quite
calm, unruffled, self-possessed now, the blood rushed tingling again
through his veins, and again he felt it mounting to his cheeks.  She
wore no hat now; and, with the sun's last rays through the doorway
falling softly upon her wealth of hair, it was as though it were a
wondrously woven mass of glinting bronze that crowned her head.

Jean's cap was in his hand.

"Oh!" she said.  "You are the"--there was just a trace of hesitation
over the choice of the word--"the man who passed us on the bridge a
little while ago, aren't you?"

There was something, a sort of indefinable challenge, in the voice and
eyes, a carelessness that, well as it was simulated, was not wholly
genuine.  Jean's eyes met the grey ones, held them--and suddenly he
smiled, accepting the challenge.

"It is good of mademoiselle to recognise me," he answered.

She stared at him for an instant, her eyes opening wide; and then, with
a contagious, impulsive laugh, she came forward into the room.

"Of course!" she cried.  "You would answer like that!  I knew it!  You
are less like a fisherman, for all your clothes, than any man I ever
saw."

"I?" said Jean, in quick surprise.  It was strange she had said that!
It was only that afternoon that Marie-Louise had said almost the same
thing.  Not like a fisherman!  Why not?  What was this imagined
difference between himself and the other men in Bernay-sur-Mer?

"Yes; you," she returned briskly.  "And now I suppose you will tell me
that you were born here, and have lived here all your life?"

"But yes, mademoiselle," he smiled again, and shrugged his shoulders;
"since it is so.  I have never been anywhere else."

"And since it is so, it must be so," she nodded.  "What is your name?"

"Jean Laparde," he replied.

"Jean"--she repeated the word deliberately.  "I like Jean," she
decided, nodding her head again.  "I like Laparde, too, but I will call
you Jean."

Jean's eyes met hers a little quizzically.  She carried things by
assault, this beautiful American girl!  There was a certain element of
intimacy, an air of proprietorship adopted toward him that somehow, at
one and the same time, quickened his pulse at the vague promise that
they would not be strangers if only she should stay in Bernay-sur-Mer,
and piqued his man-mind at the hint of mastery being snatched from him.

"All call me Jean," he said quietly.

"Then that is settled!" she announced brightly.  "Now tell me--Jean.
Is there any other place in the village besides this impossible Taverne
du Bas Rhone where we could stay for a week--a month--as long as we
liked?"

"A week--a month!"--Jean leaned suddenly toward her, an incredulous
delight unconsciously spontaneous in his voice.  "You are going to stay
that long?  But Papa Fregeau said you had no sooner arrived than you
decided to go again, and--"

"Your Papa Fregeau has a tongue that runs away with him," she
interrupted quickly.  "One may change one's mind, I suppose?  This
place will do for to-night; but afterwards--surely there is some other
place where we could stay?"

Jean shook his head.

"There is only the Bas Rhone," he said slowly.  "I--I am afraid--"

"And now, after all, you are going to be stupid!" she exclaimed
reproachfully.

What was it?  What did she mean?  It was not the words--they were
nothing.  It was the tone, her eyes, an appeal in the exquisite grace
of the lithe form bending toward him, the touch of the fingers laid
lightly on his sleeve, that look again that levelled all barriers
between them--until she was a woman and he was a man.  His mind was in
riot.  He was a fool!  And yet, fool or no, the thought would come.
Why did she want to stay now?  Papa Fregeau had said that almost on
their arrival they had decided to go on.  It was during her walk that
she had changed her mind.  What had happened on that walk to make her
change her mind?  A walk in Bernay-sur-Mer was not full of incident!
It was ridiculous, absurd, fantastical, but it was there, the thought,
sweeping him with a surge of wild emotion--was it that meeting on the
bridge?  But why?  How?  He was a rough-garbed fisherman, and she--

She laughed delightedly.

"What a frown!  How fierce you are!  Is it then such a terrible affair
to help me a little--Jean?"

"_Mon Dieu_!" cried Jean--and the words were on his lips with a rush.
"But--_no_!"

"Oh!" she murmured, and drew back a little; and the colour, rising,
glowed pink through her cheeks.  "You _are_ impulsive, aren't you?
Well, then, since you are to help me, what are we to do?"

Jean's eyes were revelling in that pink flush.  It was satisfying to
the man-mind, that--even though she were of the _grand monde_ then, a
woman was a woman after all.  It was a sort of turning of the tables,
that added to the magnetism of her presence because it put him suddenly
more at his ease.  But to help her--that was another matter.
Bernay-sur-Mer was--Bernay-sur-Mer!  _Voila tout_!  Apart from the Bas
Rhone there was no accommodation for strangers, for there was nothing
stranger than strangers in Bernay-sur-Mer.  Since then there was no
other place for them to go, he could think of no other place.  And yet,
a week, a month--to think that she would spend that time in
Bernay-sur-Mer!  _Ciel_!  Where were his brains?

"Well?" she prompted, with alluring imperiousness.

It was the force of habit.  In trouble, in perplexity, in joy, in
sorrow, for counsel, for advice there was but one court of appeal in
Bernay-sur-Mer--the good Father Anton.  The role of Father Anton was
not only spiritual--it was secular.  Bernay-sur-Mer was a child and
Father Anton was its parent--it had always been so.

"I will ask Father Anton," said Jean.

"Father Anton?  Who is Father Anton?" she demanded.

"He is the cure," Jean answered.  "I do not know of any place, but
Father Anton will know if there is any, and--"

"Splendid!" she broke in excitedly.  "Let us go and ask Father Anton at
once.  Come along"--she crossed the cafe to the front door.  "Come
along, Jean, and show me the way."

Yes, certainly, she carried things by assault this American girl.  She
bubbled with life and vivacity.  And he was to walk with her now to
Father Anton's--half an hour ago he would as soon have dreamed of
possessing a fortune!  It was incredible!  It must be a marvellous
world that, where she came from--but no, even the women of her world
could not be like her!  The suppleness of her form, it was divine; the
carriage, the poise, the smile--it was intoxication, it went to the
senses!

"I am mad!  It is as though--as though I were drunk with wine!" Jean
muttered--and followed her across the room.

"Now where is this Father Anton of yours?"--as Jean joined her outside
the tavern.

"There," said Jean, and pointed along the street.  "Do you see the
church--behind the second cottage?  Well, it is there--just on the
other side."

She nodded--and Jean, glancing at her, found that she was not looking
in that direction at all.  Instead, she seemed wholly engaged in
watching a boat start shoreward, as it pulled away from the side of a
smack anchored out in the bay.  Father Anton might have been the last
thing that concerned her.  Jean's eyes, a little puzzled, followed
hers.  When he looked up again, the grey eyes were laughing at him.

"Is it quite safe out there?" she asked, waving her hand.

"Safe?" repeated Jean, in a bewildered way.

"Stupid!" she cried merrily.  "Yes, of course--safe!  If I am to stay
here, I cannot lie all day upon the beach and do nothing.  You have a
boat, haven't you, Jean?"

"But, yes," said Jean.

"Then I am quite sure it will be safe," she decided.  "I must have a
boat, and, of course, a boatman.  You will be the boatman, Jean.  Oh, I
really believe that, after all, Bernay-sur-Mer will be possible.  There
will be places where we can go, little excursions, and heaps of things
like that.  There, that is settled!  And now I am more eager than ever
to see Father Anton."

Yes; it was settled!  It was phrase of hers, that!  To have demurred
would have been as impossible as to have said no.  And, besides, he had
no wish to either demur or refuse.  It seemed as though he were hurried
forward captive into some strange, unknown land of enchantment.  It
staggered him, bewildered him, lured him, fired his imagination--and
there was no desire to rouse himself from what seemed like a wonderful
dream.  No woman that he had ever seen, or imagined was like her.  To
spend a day where he could feast his eyes upon her!--and did she not
now talk of many days!  Even a fisherman might lift his eyes as high as
that--since she gave him leave.  Afterwards, she would go away again;
but, _bon Dieu_, one could at least live in the present!  It would be
something to remember!  Her eyes were on him again.  He felt them
studying him.  Her hand brushed his arm.  There was a faint, enticing
fragrance of violets in the air about her.

"You are not very gallant, Jean!" she laughed out.  "Aren't you pleased
with the suggestion; or would you rather--fish?"

They had reached the church, and turned.

"I was thinking," said Jean, with unconscious naivete, "that I was
afraid Father Anton would not know of any place."

She looked at him quickly, a flash in the grey eyes--then the lids
lowered.  The next instant she was pointing ahead of her.

"But there!" she cried out.  "There is Monsieur le Cure's house, is it
not?"  She clapped her hands in sudden delight.  "Why, it is a
play-house, only a make-believe one!  And how pretty!"

Behind the church was a little garden, full-flowered; a little white
fence; a little white gate; and, at the end of the garden, a little
cottage, smaller than any, where none were large, in Bernay-sur-Mer,
and which was white in colour, too, if one might hazard a guess for the
vines that grew over it, covering it, submerging it, clothing it in a
clinging mass of green, until only the little stubby chimney peeked
shyly out from the centre of the slanting roof.

"Yes," said Jean; "and there is Father Anton himself."

A bare-headed, silver-haired form in rusty black _soutane_, a watering
pot in hand, was bending over a bed of dahlias; but at the sound of
their approach the priest put down the watering pot, and came hurriedly
toward them to the gate.

"Ah, Jean, my son!" he cried out heartily--and bowed with old-fashioned
courtliness to Jean's companion.  "I heard there were strangers in
Bernay-sur-Mer, mademoiselle; but that they had gone on again.  You are
very welcome.  Won't you come in?"

She leaned upon the gate, smiling--and shook her head.

"No, thank you, Monsieur le Cure.  I must not stay long, or my father
will be wondering what could have become of me.  The truth is, that
I--we are in trouble, and Jean here has brought me to you."

"Trouble!" exclaimed Father Anton anxiously, and his face grew suddenly
grave.

She shook her head again, and laughed.

"Oh, it is not serious!  You see--but I must introduce myself.  I am
Myrna Bliss.  My father is Henry Bliss--I wonder if you have ever heard
of him?  We have lived for years and years in Paris."

Father Anton was genuinely embarrassed.

"I--I am afraid I never have," he admitted.

"Oh, well," she cried gaily, "you mustn't feel badly about it.  His is
entirely a reflected glory--that is what I tell him.  Art!  Everything
is art with him, painting, sculpture, literature; and, as he can do
neither one nor the other himself, he endows a school for this, or a
_societe_ for that, and money exists for only one reason--the
advancement of art.  And since he calls Paris the home of art, we live
in Paris.  But now I am prattling like a school girl"--she laughed
infectiously.

The cure's old face wrinkled into smiles.

"It is very interesting, mademoiselle," he said.  "And here in
Bernay-sur-Mer I fear we know too little of such things."  He reached
across the fence and laid his hand affectionately on Jean's shoulder.
"But it is not quite all our fault, is it, Jean?  The _sous_ come hard
with the fishing, and we do not have much time for anything outside our
own little world.  I should greatly like to talk with monsieur, your
father.  Is it possible that you are to stay a little while here?"

"If we do"--the girl's face was a picture of roguish merriment--"you
will not be able to escape him, I promise you, Monsieur le Cure--so
beware!  But that is our trouble.  My father is on what he calls a
little holiday--it is really that he needs rest and quiet.  For a man
of his age, what with his own affairs and his 'art,' he is far too
active.  Very well.  Bernay-sur-Mer is ideal, only--except--Monsieur le
Cure, I am sure, will understand--except the Bas Rhone."

"Ah, the Bas Rhone!" said Father Anton.  "It is that, then--the Bas
Rhone?"

"Exactly!" she smiled.  "And so Jean has brought me to you to suggest
something else for us."

Father Anton joined his finger tips thoughtfully.

"Yes; I see," he said.  "My good friends, the Fregeaus, would do all in
their power for you, they are most excellent people; but, yes--h'm--I
see.  It is a cafe much more than an inn, and for a cafe it answers
very well; and, after all, it is not their fault that there are not
proper accommodations for guests.  Yes; I am afraid the accommodations
must be very inadequate.  But you see, mademoiselle"--Father Anton's
voice had a quaint, gentle note of pleading--"we are quite off the main
road, and it is rare that a stranger stops in Bernay-sur-Mer, and since
they are poor they could not afford, even if they had the money, to
make an investment that would bring no return.  But something
else--h'm!  Truly, mademoiselle, I do not know--there is certainly no
other place to board."

"Well, a little furnished cottage then," she suggested.  "I have my own
maid, and, if there were some one else to help a little, nothing would
suit us better.  Now, Monsieur le Cure, you are not going to be so
heartless as to tell me there are no cottages either!"

For a moment Father Anton did not answer--then his face broke suddenly
into smiles.

"But, no, mademoiselle," he declared quickly, nodding his head
delightedly at Jean, "I shall tell you nothing of the sort.  One might
say it was almost providential.  Nothing could be better!  And the
finest cottage in Bernay-sur-Mer, too!  Mademoiselle and her father
will be charmed with it--and all day I have been worrying about what to
do with Marie-Louise.  Would it not be just the thing, Jean?"

"_Ma foi_!" gasped Jean in surprise, staring from one to the other.
"The house on the bluff?"

"And what else?" said Father Anton enthusiastically.  "Listen,
mademoiselle; I will explain to you.  It is the house out there on the
headland, where Gaston Bernier lived with his niece, Marie-Louise.
Three days ago in the great storm _le pauvre_ Gaston was hurt, and that
night he died.  Marie-Louise can no longer live there alone--it is not
right for a young girl.  I thought to bring her here to live with me
and my old housekeeper; but now she can rent the house to you, and can
help with the work for she is a very good cook."

"Father Anton, you are a treasure!" cried Myrna Bliss vivaciously.  "We
will take the house.  And the rent?  Would, say, two hundred francs a
month be right?"

"Two hundred francs?" repeated Father Anton incredulously, his eyes
widening.

"Yes; and another hundred for Marie-Louise."

Three hundred francs!  It was not a large sum of money--it was a
fortune!  Father Anton, in his years of ministry at Bernay-sur-Mer,
could not remember ever having seen a sum like that all at one time;
also, it was out of all proportion to what he would have thought
Marie-Louise should demand.  The good cure's face was a picture with
its mingled emotions--he was torn between a desire that this good
fortune should come to Marie-Louise, and a fear in his honest heart
that he should be privy to the crime of extortion!

Myrna Bliss laughed at him merrily.

"Then that is settled!" she announced.  "Three hundred francs.  There
is nothing more to be said.  The only question is, will Marie-Louise
let us have the house?"

"Mademoiselle," said the old priest, his eyes twinkling, "may I say
it?--you are charming!  As for the arrangements, have no fear.  I would
go this evening, only I have some sick to visit.  But very early in the
morning I will see Marie-Louise, and by the time mademoiselle and her
father have had breakfast the house will be at their disposal."

She reached her hand across the gate to thank Father Anton and bid the
cure good evening--but Jean no longer heard a word.  His mind seemed to
be clashing discordantly; his thoughts in dissension, in open hostility
one to another.  She was to live in the house on the bluff.
Marie-Louise was to stay there, too.  One moment he saw no objection to
the plan; the next moment, for a thousand vague, fragmentary reasons,
that in their entire thousand would not form a single concrete whole
that he could grasp, he did not like it at all.

He answered Father Anton's "_au revoir_" mechanically, as they started
back for the Bas Rhone.  She was in a hurry now, all life, all
excitement--half running.

"Did I not tell you, Jean, that I would find just what I wanted?" she
called out in gay spirits.

She had told him nothing of the sort.

"Yes," said Jean.

They reached the Bas Rhone, and there, in the doorway, she turned.

"I must find my father, and tell him," she said.  There was a smile, a
flash of the grey eyes, a glint from the bronze-crowned head, a quick
little impetuous pressure on his arm, a laugh soft and musical as the
rippling of a brook; and then: "Until to-morrow, Jean."

And she was gone.

Until to-morrow!  The words were strangely familiar.  Papa Fregeau was
hurrying through the cafe.  Jean turned away.  He had no wish to talk
to Papa Fregeau--or any one else.  He walked down to the beach--and his
eyes, across the bay, fixed on the headland.  Yes, that was it!  Until
to-morrow--that was what Marie-Louise had said--until to-morrow.

He went on along the beach, his brain feverishly chaotic.  She had been
like a vision, a glorious vision, suddenly gone, as she had stood there
in the doorway.  Her name was Myrna Bliss.  Why not, since Father Anton
could not go that night, why not go to Marie-Louise himself and tell
her about the house?  Yes; he would do that.

He crossed the beach to the road again, and started on--walking
rapidly.  As he neared the little bridge, his pace slowed.  At the
bridge he halted.  Perhaps it would be better not to go--it would be
better left to Father Anton, that!

"_Sacre bleu_!" cried Jean suddenly aloud.  "What is the matter with
me?  What has happened?"

But he went no further along the road; for, after a moment, he turned,
retracing his steps slowly toward Bernay-sur-Mer.

And so that night Jean did not go to Marie-Louise.  But there, at the
house on the bluff, later on, Marie-Louise, after Mother Fregeau had
gone to bed, took the beacon that Jean had made and placed it upon the
table in the front room where, before, that other beacon, the great
lamp, had stood.  And for a long time she sat before it, her elbows on
the table, now looking at the little clay figure, now staring through
the window to the headland's point where sometimes she could see the
surf splash silver white in the moonlight.  It had been a happy
afternoon in many ways; but there was something that would not let it
be all happiness, for there was confusion in her thoughts.  The house
was lonely now, and Uncle Gaston had gone; it did not seem true, it did
not seem that it could be he would not open that door again and come
thumping in with the nets over his shoulders and the wooden floats
bumping on the floor--and the tears unbidden filled her eyes.  And her
talk with Jean somehow had not satisfied her, had not dispelled that
intuition that troubled her, for all that he had laughed at her for it;
and they had not, after all, settled what she was to do now that Uncle
Gaston was gone, for, instead of talking more about it, Jean had
forgotten all about her for ever so long while he had worked at the
little clay figure.

Her eyes, from the window, fastened on the beacon with its open,
outstretched arms--and, suddenly, confusion went and great tenderness
came.  He had made it for her, and he had said that--that it _was_ her.

"Jean's beacon," she said softly.

And presently she went upstairs to the little attic room, and
undressed, and blew out the candle; and, in her white night-robe, the
black hair streaming over her shoulders, the moonlight upon her, she
knelt beside the bed.

"Make me that, _mon Pere_," she whispered; "make me that--Jean's beacon
all through my life."




-- V --

"WHO IS JEAN LAPARDE?"

The mattress was of straw--and the straw had probably been garnered in
a previous generation, if not in a prehistoric age!  It was so old that
it was a shifting, lumpy mass of brittle chaff, whose individual units
at unexpected moments punctured the ticking and, nettle-wise, stuck
through the coarse sheet.  It was not comfortable.  It had not been
comfortable all night.  Truly, the best that could be said for the Bas
Rhone was that, as Father Anton in his gentle way had taken pains to
make it clear, its proprietors were well-intentioned--and that was a
source of comfort only as far as it went!

Myrna Bliss wriggled drowsily into another position--and a moment later
wriggled back into the old one.  Then she opened her eyes, and stared
about her.  The morning sun was streaming in through the window.  She
observed this with sleepy amazement.  After all then, she must have
slept more than she had imagined, in spite of the awful bed.

The _lap-lap-lap_ of the sea came to her.  In through the open window
floated the voices of children at play in the street; from down on the
beach the sound of men's voices, shouting and calling cheerily to each
other, reached her; from below stairs some sort of a family reunion
appeared to be in progress.  She could hear that absurd Papa Fregeau
talking as though he were a soda-water bottle with the cork suddenly
exploded!

"Ah, _mignonne--cherie_!  You are back!  You will go away no more--not
for a day!  I have been in despair!  It is the Americans!  I have been
miserable!  _Tiens, embrasse-moi_, my little Lucille!"

There was the commotion of a playful struggle, then the resounding
smack of a kiss--and then a woman's voice.

"Such a simpleton as you are, _mon_ Jacques!"--it was as though one
were talking to a child.  "So they have put you in despair, these
Americans!  Well, then, I am back.  And listen!"--importantly.  "What
do you think?"

"Think?" cried Papa Fregeau excitedly.  "But I do not think!"

"That is true," was the response; "so I will tell you.  They are going
away this morning."

"_Merci_!" exclaimed Papa Fregeau fervently.  "I am very glad!"

"They are going to Marie-Louise's."

"To Marie-Louise's!"--incredulously.  "You tell me that they are going
to Marie-Louise's?"

"Yes; to Marie-Louise's, stupid!  Father Anton came an hour ago to make
the arrangements.  They are to rent the house, and Marie-Louise is to
remain there _en domestique_.  Now what have you to say to that?"

"_Mon Dieu_!" ejaculated Papa Fregeau, with intense earnestness.  "That
I am sorry for Marie-Louise!"

Myrna Bliss laughed softly, delightedly to herself--and then, with a
sudden little gasp, sat bolt upright in bed.  The whole thing,
everything since yesterday afternoon had been inconceivably
preposterous--and she herself preposterous most of all!  If her father
ever heard the truth of it, what a scene there would be!

She got out of bed impulsively, walked to the window, and leaned her
elbows on the sill, her brows gathered in a perplexed little frown.
Just what had happened anyway?  She had decided ten minutes after they
had arrived in Bernay-sur-Mer that she would die of ennui if she stayed
there.  They had started for a walk, she and her father, and, without
saying anything to him, she had turned back and taken it upon herself
to inform this fat, effervescent little hotel proprietor that they
would go on that afternoon.  She had intended, during the walk, to tell
her father what she had done, and, in fact, had told him; and then on
her return after that--yes, that meeting on the bridge--she had
countermanded her orders, and not only countermanded them but had even
rented a cottage!  Her father had seen nothing extraordinary in it,
which was natural enough--since he left all travelling arrangements to
her.  Indeed, on the contrary, as Bernay-sur-Mer had seemed to appeal
to him, he had been rather taken with the idea--if perhaps a trifle
sceptical as to the success of the housekeeping plan.  In a word, if
the discovery of what she believed to be suitable accommodations had
induced her to change her mind and stay in Bernay-sur-Mer, it was
perfectly satisfactory to him.  The brows smoothed out.  As far as her
father was concerned, that was all there was to it.  She had been the
practical manager ever since her mother had died five years before.

The brows puckered up again.  Her father would never give it a second
thought, he would never for an instant imagine there was any ulterior
motive for what she had done.  How could he--when the real reason was
so utterly absurd, ridiculous and unheard of!  Fancy!  What would that
select and ultra-exclusive set in Paris say?  What if it ever came to
the ears of New York!  Myrna Bliss to bury herself alive in a little
Mediterranean village that was probably not even on the map, and all at
a glance from the eyes of a--fisherman!  They wouldn't believe it.  Who
would believe it!  It was unimaginable!

Dainty little fingers reached up and drummed with their pink tips on
the window pane; the pucker became more pronounced.  Well, she _had_
done it, nevertheless.  And why was it so absurd, so ridiculous, so
impossible after all?  She would do exactly the same thing over again
without an instant's hesitation.  It was quite true the man was a
fisherman--but he did not _look_ like a fisherman.  He was magnificent!
It was not ridiculous at all--it was piquantly delightful.  Neither was
it so absurdly impossible--if she did not stay in Bernay-sur-Mer, it
would only be to choose some other place equally as tiresome--and
without even a "fisherman" to compensate for it.  What a face the man
had!  It was not merely handsome, it was--well, it was the prototype of
what the artist coterie that buzzed around her father day and night was
forever attempting to give expression to, but which, until now, she had
never believed could exist in real life.  He would be a refreshing
change this astounding man-creature, this Jean Laparde, after the vapid
attentions of the vapid men who made up her life in the social whirl of
Paris--Count von Heirlich and Lord Barnvegh, for examples, out of a
host of satellites who were constantly at her heels, because, of
course, she was an heiress; and whose attentions she endured because,
of course, some day she must marry, and because, of course again, to
marry anything less than a title, a name, fame, was quite out of the
question.  As for that, no one expected anything but a brilliant match
for her--and certainly she expected nothing less for herself.  What a
pity that they were not like Jean Laparde, those men of her world!

The fingers, from the window pane, tossed back a truant coil of hair;
the white shoulders lifted in a little shrug.  Paris--New York!  That
was all the world she knew.  New York once a year--Paris the rest of
the time.  Expatriates--for art!  That's what they were!  Art--her
father was obsessed with it.  It was a mania with him; it was the last
thing in the world that interested her.  As a matter of fact, she
couldn't seem to think of anything that particularly interested her.
One tired quickly enough of the social merry-go-round--after a season
it became inane.  One surely had the right to amuse one's self with a
new sensation--if one could find it!  The man had the physique of a
young god.  A fisherman--well, what of it?  He was splendid.  He was
more than splendid.  Even the crude dress seemed to enhance him.  It
was a face that had made her catch her breath in that long second when
their eyes had met.  Yes, of course--why not admit it?--he interested
her.  He was rugged, he was strong, and above all he was supremely a
man.  Of course, it was only a matter of a week, a month, the time they
chose to stay there; but it would be a decided novelty while it lasted.

She laughed suddenly aloud--a low, rippling little laugh.  Actually the
man was already her slave!  Imagine a man like that her slave!
Certainly it would be a new sensation.  What a strange thrill it had
given her when she had first caught sight of him on the bridge the
afternoon before.  Well, why shouldn't it have done so--a fisherman
with a face like that?  It was amazing!  Think of finding such a man in
such a situation!  Was it any wonder that she had thrilled--even if he
were only a fisherman?  In Paris, of course, she could not have done
what she had done, it would have been quite out of the question, there
were the conventions--but then in Paris one didn't see men like that!

"And since," confided Myrna Bliss to a little urchin running in the
street below, who neither saw nor heard her, "we are not in Paris, but
in Bernay-sur-Mer, which is quite another story, you see it is not
absurd or ridiculous at all, and I and my fisherman--"

She turned abruptly from the window at the sound of a knock and the
opening of her door.  It was Nanette, her maid, with a tray.

"I have mademoiselle's _dejeuner_," announced Nanette.  "Monsieur Bliss
has already finished his, and asks if mademoiselle will soon be ready.
He is waiting with Monsieur le Cure for you."

"Waiting--with Monsieur le Cure?"--Myrna's eyebrows went up in
well-simulated surprise.

"To visit the cottage mademoiselle has taken," amplified Nanette, and
her retrousse nose was delicately elevated a trifle higher.  Nanette,
very evidently, was one at all events who was not in favour of the plan.

"Oh, the cottage--of course!" exclaimed Myrna, as though suddenly
inspired.  "I had forgotten all about it.  Dress me quickly then,
Nanette."

Nanette tossed a shapely dark head.

"Is mademoiselle going to stay here long?"--Nanette at times felt
privileged to take liberties.

"Gracious, Nanette!" complained Myrna sweetly.  "What a question!  How
can you possibly expect me to know?"

Nanette arranged the tray perfunctorily.

"There was a man who left a message with that imbecile proprietor for
mademoiselle early this morning," she observed.  "Mademoiselle has
engaged a boatman?"

"A boatman?  Certainly not!" declared Myrna Bliss.  "Not without seeing
the boat--and I have seen no boat!"

"But mademoiselle engages a cottage without seeing the cottage,"
murmured Nanette slyly.

"That will do, Nanette!" said Myrna severely.  "There was but one
cottage; there are dozens of boats.  It is quite a different matter.
What did the man say?"

"That he was obliged to go out for the four o'clock fishing this
morning," said Nanette, pouting a little at the rebuke; "but that he
would go to mademoiselle at the cottage early in the forenoon."

A row of little white teeth crunched into a piece of crisp toast.

"Very well, Nanette."  Myrna's brows pursed up thoughtfully.  "You may
get out that new marquisette from Fallard's; and, I think"--she glanced
out of the window--"my sunbonnet.  And, Nanette"--suddenly
impatient--"hurry, please--since father is waiting."

Myrna's impatience bore fruit.  In ten minutes she was ready, and,
running down the stairs, went out to the street, where her father and
the cure, deep in conversation--on art undoubtedly, since her father
was doing most of the talking!--were pacing slowly up and down, as they
waited for her.

Her sunbonnet was swinging in her hand, the big grey eyes were shining,
the glow of superb health was in her cheeks.

"Good morning, Father Anton!" she called out gaily.  "What a shame to
have kept you waiting!"

The old priest turned toward her with unaffected pleasure, as he held
out his hand.

"Good morning to you, mademoiselle"--he was smiling with eyes as well
as lips.  "What a radiant little girl!  It makes one full of life and
young again; you are, let me see, you are--a tonic!"

She laughed as she turned to her father.

"'Morning, Dad!  Sleep well?"

Henry Bliss removed his cigar to survey his daughter with whimsical
reproach; then he patted her cheek affectionately.

"Fierce, wasn't it?" he chuckled.  "Those beds are the worst ever!  I
was telling the cure here about them."

"It is too bad," said Father Anton solicitously.  "It is regrettable.
I am so very sorry.  But"--earnestly--"you must not think too hardly of
the Fregeaus.  Since no guests sleep here, I am sure they can have no
idea that--"

"No; of course not!" agreed Henry Bliss heartily, and laughed.  "The
hard feelings are all in the beds--and we'll let them stay there.  Now,
then, Myrna, are you ready to inspect this new domain of yours?  And
shall we walk, or take the car?  Father Anton says it is not far."

"We will walk then," decided Myrna.

It was the walk she had taken yesterday, at least it was the same as
far as the little bridge; and for that distance she walked beside her
father and the cure, chatting merrily, but there she loitered a little
behind them.  Half impishly, half with a genuine impulse that she
rather welcomed than avoided, she told herself that it was quite unfair
to pass the little spot so indifferently.  Was it not here that this
most bizarre of adventures had begun?  She had stood here by the
railing, and he had stood there across on the other side, and--the red
leaped suddenly flaming into her cheeks.  She had never looked at a man
like that before--no man had ever looked at her like that before!  And
it had been spontaneous, instant, like a flash of fire that had lighted
up a dark and unknown pathway, which, in the momentary blaze of light,
was full of strange wonder; and which, because it was an unknown way,
and because the glimpse had shown so much in so brief an instant that
the brain fused all into confusion and nothing was concrete, resulted,
not in illuminating the way, but, the flash of light gone again, in
transforming the pathway only into a bewildering maze.

She laughed a little after a while, shaking her head.  Such an absurd
fancy!  But what an entrancing, alluring little fancy!  Decidedly, it
would be a new sensation to be lost in a maze like that--for a time.
She would tire of it soon enough--the thrill probably would not even
last as long as she would want it to.  No thrill ever did!  She bit her
lip suddenly in pretty vexation.  It was stupid of the man to go off
fishing!  Had he done it to pique her?  The idea!  He certainly could
not have the temerity to imagine that it lay within his power to pique
her.  The sunbonnet swung to and fro abstractedly from its ribbon
strings.  Wasn't it strange that he had--piqued her!

She went on after her father and the cure.  They were quite a way ahead
now, and she hastened to catch up with them.  As she drew near, she
caught her father's words.

"... Peyre on the _Histoire Generale des Beaux-Arts_, Monsieur le Cure,
I recommend it to you heartily.  It is a most comprehensive little
volume, embracing in a condensed form the story of the arts from the
time of the Egyptians down to the present day, and--"

Myrna, in spite of herself, laughed outright, at which both men turned
their heads.  Her father, incorrigible, was at it again; and, once
started, there was no stopping him.  Poor Father Anton!  For the rest
of the way he would listen to art!

"Did I not tell you to beware, Father Anton?" she cried out in comical
despair--and waved them to go on again.

She had no desire to listen to art, its relation to nature, its
relation to science, its relation to civilisation, nor, above all, to a
dissertation on the modern school.  She had heard it all before; and,
if it had not passed as quickly through one ear as it had come into the
other, her head, she was quite sure, would have driven her to
distraction.  Besides, it was much more important to think about
something else--no, not what she had been thinking about a moment ago;
but, for instance, to be practical, about this menage whose wheels,
without knowing whether they were oiled or not, she had impulsively set
in motion.  Would the cottage be at all habitable?  Would this
Marie-Louise be at all suitable?  Would Marie-Louise and Nanette get
along together?  Nanette was insanely jealous of Jules--nothing but the
fact that Jules was with them would have induced Nanette, to whom Paris
was the beginning and the end of all things, to have come on such a
trip.  Yes, there was a very great deal to think about--now that it
occurred to her!  Myrna fell into a brown study, quite oblivious to her
surroundings.

When she joined her father and the cure again, they had stopped at the
edge of the little wood on the headland, and a cottage, almost as
prettily vine-covered as Father Anton's, lay before them.

"Well, Myrna," her father called, with a smile, "I must say your plunge
in the dark looks propitious so far."

"No, no!  Not a plunge in the dark!" protested Father Anton quickly,
his eyes full of expectant pleasure on Myrna.  "That is not fair,
Monsieur Bliss!  It was on my recommendation, was it not, mademoiselle?
And now--eh?--what does mademoiselle think of it?"

It was like the imaginative conception of some painter.  The cottage,
green with climbing vines, spotlessly white where the vines were
sparse, nestled in the trees--in front, as far as the eye could reach,
the glorious, deep, unfathomable blue of the Mediterranean; nearer, the
splash of surf, like myriad fountains, on the headland's rugged point;
while a tiny fringe of beach, just peeping from under the edge of the
cliff at the far side of the cottage, glistened as though full of
diamonds in the sunlight.

"Father Anton--you are a dear!" Myrna cried impetuously.

Her eyes roved delightedly here and there.  There was a little trellis
with flowers over the back door--that little outhouse would do
splendidly as a garage.  And then the front door opened, and her eyes
fixed on a girl's figure on the threshold--and somehow the figure was
familiar.

"Who is that, Father Anton?" she demanded.

"But it is Marie-Louise--who else?" smiled the priest.  "I will call
her."

"No," said Myrna; "we will go in."

Of course!  How absurd!  She recognised the girl now.  It was the girl
who had passed them on the bridge--Myrna's sunbonnet swung a little
abstractedly again--with Jean Laparde.

Father Anton bustled forward.

"Marie-Louise," he said, as they reached the door, "this is the lady
and gentleman who are to take the house, and--"

"Oh, but I think we have seen each other before," interposed Myrna
graciously.  "Was it not you, Marie-Louise, who passed us on the bridge
yesterday afternoon?"

Marie-Louise's dark eyes, deep, fearless, met the grey ones--and
dropped modestly.

"Yes, mademoiselle," she said.

"Certainly!" said Henry Bliss pleasantly.  "I remember you too,
and--ah!"  With a sudden step, quite forgetting the amenities due his
daughter, he brushed by her into the room, and stooped over the clay
figure of the beacon.  He picked it up, looked at it in a sort of
startled incredulity, as though he could not believe his eyes; then,
setting it down, went to the window, threw up the shade for better
light, and returned to the clay figure.  And then, after a moment, he
began to mutter excitedly.  "Yes--undoubtedly--of the flower of the
French school--Demaurais, Lestrange, Pitot--eh?--which?
And--yes--here--within a day or so--it is quite fresh!"  He rushed back
to the doorway to Father Anton.  "Who has been in the village
recently?"--his words were coming with a rush, he had the priest by the
shoulders and was unconsciously shaking him.  "Was it a man with long
black hair over his coat collar and a beak nose?  Was it a little short
man who always jerks his head as he talks?  Or was it a big fellow,
very fat, and, yes, if it were Pitot he would probably be drunk?
Quick!  Which one was it?"

Father Anton, jaw dropped, dumb with amazement, could only shake his
head.  This American!  Had he gone suddenly mad?

"Good heavens, dad, what is the matter?" Myrna cried out.

He paid no attention to her.

"You, then!"--he whirled on Marie-Louise, grasping her arm fiercely.
"Who has been here?"

"But--but, m'sieu," stammered Marie-Louise, shrinking back in affright,
"no one has been here."

Myrna pressed forward into the room.

"Dad, what _is_ the--"  She got no further.

"It is true--I am a fool.  I was wrong.  Look, Myrna!"--his face
flushed, his eyes lighted with the fire of an enthusiast, he was at the
table, lifting up the little clay figure of the fisherwoman with the
outstretched arms, the beacon, in his hands again.  "Look, Myrna!  No,
I am not mad--I am only a fool.  I, who pride myself as a critic, was
fool enough for a moment to think this the work of perhaps Demaurais,
or Lestrange, or Pitot--when no one of the three even in his greatest
moment of inspiration could approach it!  There is life in it.  You
feel the very soul.  It is sublime!  But it is more than that--it is a
stupendous thing, for, since it has been freshly done, and no stranger
to these people has been here, the man who did it must be one of
themselves.  Don't you understand, Myrna, don't you understand?  The
world will ring with it.  It is the discovery of a genius.  I make the
statement without reservation.  _This is the work of the greatest
sculptor France will have ever known_!"

Father Anton had come forward a little timorously, lacing and unlacing
his fingers.  Upon Myrna's face was a sort of bewildered stupefaction.
Marie-Louise, her breath coming in little gasps, was gazing wide-eyed
at the man who held in his hands her beacon, the clay figure she had
seen Jean make.

"Is--is it true--what you say?" she whispered.

Henry Bliss looked at her for a moment, startled--as though he was for
the first time aware of her presence.

"You--yes, of course, you must know about this, as it is in the house
here," he burst out abruptly.  "You know who made it?"

"But, yes," said Marie-Louise, and now there was a sudden new note, a
trembling note of pride that struggled for expression in her voice.
"But, yes--it was Jean Laparde."

"Laparde--Jean Laparde?"--his voice was hoarse in its eagerness.
"Quick!" he cried.  "Laparde--Jean Laparde?  Who is Jean Laparde?"

A flush crept pink into Marie-Louise's face.

"He is my fiance," she said.




-- VI --

THE GIFT

Father Anton, with a smile, his eyes twinkling, looked from one to the
other of the group as much as to say: "There!  Is that not an
altogether charming denouement?"  Myrna had yet to discover herself in
a situation to whose command she did not rise--inwardly a sudden
confusion upon her, her face expressed a polite interest.  As for Henry
Bliss, the words were without any significance whatever--it was not
what he wanted to know.

It was Marie-Louise, embarrassed, who broke the silence.

"Will mademoiselle and monsieur look through the house now, and tell me
what rooms they will occupy?"

Henry Bliss, for answer, caught Father Anton again by the shoulder.

"This Jean Laparde," he flung out excitedly, "you ought to know all
about him!  He must have done other things besides this"--he swept his
hand toward the beacon, which he had now very carefully replaced on the
table.

"But, of course!" declared Father Anton, still smiling.  "Mother
Fregeau will assure you--forever little faces and figures out of her
dough and the inside of her loaves."

"No, no--good Lord!" exclaimed Henry Bliss.  "I mean--"

"I am telling you," interrupted Father Anton mildly.  "He has been
forever at that since he was a boy, and then there are the clay dolls
for the children, of which there would be very many, at least a
hundred."

"A hundred!  A hundred clay _dolls_ by the man who did this!" shouted
Henry Bliss eagerly.  "And do you mean to say you never realised--oh,
good Lord!  Where are they?"

Father Anton's eyebrows went up in almost pitying astonishment.

"But, monsieur," he said patiently, "where would they be?  They do not
last long; and, even if the children did not break them almost
immediately, they would soon crumble to pieces like their own mud pies."

"Mud!"  Henry Bliss bent quickly over the beacon again.  "Yes, so it
is!  It is mostly mud.  It is unbelievable!  The man did not even have
modelling clay to work with!" He swung again on the cure.  "Well, where
is this Jean Laparde?  I want to see him at once!"

Myrna's laugh rippled suddenly through the room.

"Dad--don't get so excited.  Your Jean Laparde won't run away.  He's
out fishing now, but he said he would come out here this morning."

"Out fishing--come out here this morning?" repeated her father, staring
at her.  "How do you know?"

Myrna shook her finger at him in playful severity.

"If you had paid any more than the merest pretence of attention to me
last night, you would have remembered the name--no"--she laughed
again--"no, perhaps after all I didn't mention it, I'm not sure I
hadn't forgotten it myself; but he is the fisherman who took me to
Father Anton here, you know--the one I told you might possibly do as a
boatman for us while we were here."

"Great grief!  Do as a--_boatman_!" ejaculated Henry Bliss weakly.
"You, Monsieur le Cure, what time do these fishermen return?"

"But anytime, now," Father Anton answered.  "The boats go out very
early in the morning."

"Good!"  Henry Bliss pushed the cure impetuously toward the door.
"Then, you and I, Father Anton, will go right back to the village and
be there when he comes in."

"But"--Father Anton was quite bewildered--one was literally carried off
one's feet--were they all alike, these Americans!  "But," he protested
helplessly, as he was being pulled through the door, "but if the boats
are already in, and since mademoiselle said he was coming here, then--"

"Then we will meet him on the road"--they were already out of the
house.  "Now, then, Monsieur le Cure, if you are a loyal Frenchman,
step out quickly, for this is the greatest day in the history of
France, the greatest day, I tell you, in the"--the voice died away in
the distance.

Marie-Louise had not moved.  She was still standing in the centre of
the room, a strangely spellbound, dumfounded little figure.

"Mademoiselle," she ventured timidly, "what--what is--"

"I am sure I do not know," said Myrna languidly.  "Have you no shoes or
stockings?"

Marie-Louise glanced perplexedly at her small, bare feet.

"But, yes, mademoiselle--for the village sometimes, and when one walks
in the fields."

"Go and put them on, then," directed Myrna.  "And remember always to
wear them while we are here.  When you come back, I will go through the
house with you and tell you what to do."

"Yes, mademoiselle," said Marie-Louise nervously--there was a sense of
guilt upon her, but wherein lay the enormity of her offence she did not
understand.  Nevertheless, was not mademoiselle of the great world, and
since mademoiselle was displeased, surely mademoiselle must know.  She
turned hastily from the room.

"No--wait!"  Myrna's brain, for all her outward composure, was far from
calm.  It seemed as though the little stone she had started rolling
down the hill in a--well, was it a whim?--was gathering many other
stones in its course and developing into an avalanche.  She had no
desire to go into the details of the house with this Marie-Louise at
that moment; on the contrary, it was absolutely impossible.  The one
thing she wanted was to be alone--to clear all this muddle out of her
head.  "No--wait!" she repeated.  "There will be quite time enough to
attend to that when Nanette and Jules arrive; and in the meantime you
had better go down to the Bas Rhone and help Nanette if you can.  When
they are ready, come back with them."

"Nanette, mademoiselle?  But I do not know who Nanette is."

"My maid," said Myrna tersely.

"Yes, mademoiselle"--Marie-Louise, with a quick nod, was running from
the room.  "At once, mademoiselle--as soon as I have put on my shoes
and stockings."

Myrna tossed her sunbonnet on a chair, and walked over to the table to
inspect the little clay figure.  For ten minutes she stood in front of
it, now frowning, now with unconscious admiration the dominant
expression upon her face, now with puzzled bewilderment in her eyes.
Of the technique of any art she not only knew nothing, but secretly
held it in contempt; but she could not have been her father's daughter
to have lacked a sense of appreciation for the beautiful.  At the end
of the ten minutes she picked up her sunbonnet again, and walked slowly
out of the house.

At the headland's point, two hundred yards away, she sat down upon the
rocks.  She could not seem to get that little clay figure out of her
head now.  It was amazing how it took form before her eyes as
realistically as though it were still in front of her!  What a
wonderful charm and appeal there was in it!  She could see that for
herself, even if her father had not grown so excited over it.  "The
greatest sculptor in France"--well, perhaps that was a little
exaggerated!  But her father was nevertheless acknowledged to be a
critic second to none in the world of art, and he was far too chary of
his reputation to sacrifice it on a myth.  Certainly then, there was at
least a promise in the man's work.  What did her father mean to do?  He
had not rushed off that way for nothing.  It was really charming, that
little figure.  She would get Jean to let her have it, buy it from him.
Imagine possessing the first piece of his work, if the man ever
amounted to anything!

She threw a stone out into the water, watched it splash, watched the
spray of the breaking waves on what seemed like a reef away out to one
side of the headland, and watched a boat coming shoreward from out
beyond the reef again.  There was a disturbed little gathering of her
brows.  But suppose she did buy it, the thing would crumble to pieces
in a few days, and--stupid!  Of course!  Had she not been often in
those dirty _ateliers_ that were always in a mess with their clay and
their plaster?  One could send it to Marseilles to have a cast made;
and, afterwards, the cast could be sent home to Paris.

What was her father going to do with this "discovery" of his, as he
called it?  Discovery--_his_!  A little thrill ran through her.  It was
not his discovery--it was _hers_!  It was she who had discovered Jean
Laparde--in that one look.  The man's soul, a great smouldering volcano
of emotion, was in his face, his eyes.  It was amazing that this had
happened; amazing almost beyond credence that, hidden in the little
village, a fisherman, untaught, unconscious even of his own power, had
produced a piece of work that had aroused her father, one of the great
art critics in France, to such a pitch of elated excitement--but
somehow it was not in the least bit amazing that it was _Jean Laparde_
who had done it!

Her eyes fixed again on the boat, that was well in now between the reef
and the headland; and, with a sudden little gasp, she rose quickly to
her feet--it was Jean Laparde himself.  What splendid width of
shoulder, what strength, and ease, and assurance in the sweep of the
oars that bent the blades backward from swirling little eddies, that
lifted the heavy boat to send it bounding forward as though it were a
feather-weight.  It was Jean Laparde--the fiance of Marie-Louise!

It was to the front at last, that thought!  It had been dominant from
the moment Marie-Louise had uttered the words, only she had attempted
to ignore it, lose it in the other phases of this bewildering morning.
But it was out now!  Well, what of it?  It was an impossible situation
this that she had created, was it not?  There was no use in denying
even to herself that the man had aroused in her--what should she call
it?--a desire to cultivate him a little, since he would be so new, so
fresh, so quite different.  And Marie-Louise was at the moment now
actually in her employ as--one could not call her a servant, it was
Marie-Louise's own house, and she was only there to help for a little
while at the cure's request--but still--the colour burned red in
Myrna's cheeks.

The next instant, she smiled a little.  What a simpleton she was!  What
on earth did it matter!  What could it possibly matter!  Good heavens,
she wasn't going to take this Jean Laparde away from Marie-Louise!
_She_ wasn't going to marry him!  There wasn't the slightest reason in
the world why, just when the man turned out to be an embryonic genius
and promised to prove really interesting, she should change her
attitude toward him--and, anyway, it was almost a foregone conclusion
that her father now would monopolise Jean Laparde morning, noon and
night.

She glanced at the boat--and started abruptly for the house.  To remain
there would have been almost too obviously--a meeting.  Jean had
evidently not gone to the village at all with the other boats--she
supposed there were other boats since the cure had spoken of them--but
had come directly in from wherever he had been fishing.

She reached the house and through the window watched Jean send the boat
sweeping up to the beach, leap from it, and, seemingly without
exertion, pull it higher over the sand.  He turned then, searching the
house with his eyes; and suddenly placed his hands trumpet-fashion to
his lips.

"Marie-Louise!  Ho, Marie-Louise!" she heard him shout, as he came
running up the cliff path from the beach.

Virile in movement, a striking figure, there seemed all of command,
something heroic even in the rugged strength, something absolutely
undauntable about the man.  And then she laughed merrily to herself, as
she stepped to the door.  What a change!  Who would have believed it!
Jean, at sight of her, had stopped as though he had been struck,
self-consciousness mocked at the air of command, and through the brown
tan of his face crept the red.

"Oh, it is you, Jean!" she exclaimed.

Mechanically he reached up for his cap.

"I--I did not think that mademoiselle had got here yet," he said, the
dark eyes in their steady gaze disconcertingly at variance with his
stammering speech.

"We've been here ages," she told him quickly.  "But the others have
gone back again.  Marie-Louise has gone to help Nanette with the
things.  And my father rushed off with that delightful old cure of
yours to look for you."

"Rushed off to look for me?" echoed Jean in astonishment.  "But I told
Jacques Fregeau to tell you that I would come here as soon--"

"Yes, of course, to look for you--but not for the purpose you imagine!"
she broke in smiling, and shook her head reproachfully at him.  "Jean,
do you know that I am quite angry with you!  Come here!" She led the
way into the house.  "Now!"--pointing to the clay figure on the table.
"Is not that your work?"

"But, yes, mademoiselle"--there was only a cursory glance at the
beacon; his eyes were on this fresh, glorious, wonderful woman, whose
white dress of some marvellous texture draped about her with such
exquisite, dainty grace ... and the throat was bare, and full, and
white as ivory is white ... that glint of bronze that was always
playing over the massive coils of hair ... the playful severity in the
pursed lips ... it was intoxication, it was fire ... he had been drunk
with it all the night, all that morning in the boat while he had fished.

"Then why did you not tell me about it last night?" she demanded.

With a start, he shrugged his shoulders--and perplexity came.

"But it is nothing--that," he said slowly.  "What was there to tell,
mademoiselle?"

"Nothing!"  She stared at him in amazement.  "Do you really mean to say
that you think it is--nothing?"

"But, of course!" he said simply.

And then suddenly she smiled, and shook her head at him again.

"Did I not tell you last night, Jean, that you were less like a
fisherman than any man I had ever seen?"

"Yes; mademoiselle said that."  Was there a word of hers that he had
forgotten!

"Very well, then," she began magisterially, "since you think nothing of
that little statue, I will tell you what I think.  It is so much more
than 'nothing' that I am going to buy it from you.  It is"--her voice
changed suddenly, soft in abandon, full in admiration--"oh, Jean, it is
superb, magnificent; it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen;
and--and I think I want it more than I have ever wanted anything
before."

She had come closer to him, touched him, her hand was on his sleeve,
her cheeks were flushed.  That look--God, was he mad?--that _same_ look
was in her eyes again.  Yes, he was mad--with a madness that bade him
sweep her into his arms and crush her there in all her alluring beauty.
He was white--he felt the blood leave his face.  She wanted
that--wanted that bit of clay that _he_ had made!

"It is not for sale, mademoiselle," he said hoarsely; "it is yours."

"No, no, Jean!" she cried.  "You do not understand.  It is worth--oh, I
do not know how much--ever so much money.  Father will be able to tell
us.  It is on account of this that he rushed off to try and find you.
He is terribly excited about it."

His hand at his side was clenched; his arm was rigid--he dared not move
it for fear she might draw her hand away--it would not come often, a
touch of intimacy like that.  What did it matter about her father!
What did anything matter--but that fiery tide that was whipping through
his veins.

"It is good of monsieur, it is good of mademoiselle to praise it," he
muttered.

"But it is not good of us!" she asserted earnestly.  "Really, I must
try to make you understand, Jean.  I can't take it under false
pretences, you know--you might hate me for it afterwards.  I am sure
you would.  My father says it is a wonderful piece of work--that you
are a great artist."

"I?" said Jean--and suddenly in a sweep of passion laughed a little
fiercely.  "Impossible!  But it is enough that mademoiselle, for some
reason that I cannot understand, thinks so much of it.  It is hers."

"And I tell you that it is not impossible!" she insisted seriously.
"Listen, Jean"--her hand closed a little tighter on his arm.  "Suppose
that I took it, accepted it, and some day you should find that it had
become a tremendously famous thing--what then?"

"It would still be unworthy of mademoiselle," he answered, in a low
tone.

With a little gasp, she drew back a step and looked at him--but it was
the grey eyes that dropped, and for a moment to Jean, unconscious of
his own tense poise, the rapt burning in his eyes, she seemed all
glorious with that play of colour now that was even in the pulsing
throat.  But the next instant she was smiling radiantly.

"Thank you, Jean," she said naively.  "I will take it very gladly, and
I will always keep it.  Father will have a cast of it made at once,
and--" she stopped suddenly, turning quickly toward the door.
"Listen!" she said.  "That's the motor, isn't it?  Marie-Louise must
have met it on the road."

An automobile had come to a stop by the side of the house; and, a
moment later, a girl's voice, high-pitched in sarcasm, reached them.

"_Ma foi_!  Fancy!  She owns the house!  What an aristocrat!  No doubt
she will expect mademoiselle and monsieur to invite her to table with
them next!  Oh, _la, la_, but you have lots to learn, _ma petite
paysanne_!"

"Oh, let her alone, Nanette!" exclaimed a man's voice sharply.  "She
has done nothing but answer your own questions, except"--with a
laugh--"that she has ridden on the front seat!"

It seemed to come with a shock to Jean that snatch of conversation, as
something cold, chilling the fire that but an instant gone had been
raging within him.  It was an arraignment of himself, a slap in the
face, sharply, curtly given, a reminder that for all his temerity he
was--a fisherman.  Myrna had gone to the front door.  He swept his hand
in a dazed way across his eyes, then straightened suddenly--it was a
spell that he had been under.  Nor was the spell gone; but now, at
least, he was in control of himself.  He walked across the room to
where Myrna stood.

"Mademoiselle," he offered quietly, "can I help with the baggage?"

She turned to him, smiling.

"Oh, if you will, Jean!" she cried gratefully.  "Please help Jules with
the trunks.  And afterwards"--her hand was on his sleeve again--"though
I must see about arranging things, you mustn't go away.  Father will be
back shortly, and you must wait."

"I will wait," said Jean.




-- VII --

WHERE GLORY AWAITS

His back to the cliff, and leaning against the gunwale of his boat,
which on landing a little while ago he had drawn up on the beach, Jean
dug abstractedly at the sand with the toe of his boot.  He had helped
Jules, the chauffeur, to carry the baggage into the house, where Myrna
Bliss, her maid and Marie-Louise were now busily engaged
within--occasionally he could hear one or other of their voices--and he
was waiting.  What for?  He did not know.  He had promised her that he
would wait.  Her father wanted to see him because he made _poupees_ out
of clay, and because he had made that little statue which, somehow, had
so delighted her.  It was very curious--very curious that a little
thing like that should have taken their fancy!

His hand passed nervously across his forehead.  But that was of no
account, the statue!  There were other things.  He was living in a
dream--no, not a dream--something much more vital than a dream.  From a
dream one awoke, and the dream was dispelled.  He was awake now and the
spell was still upon him.  In her presence he lost his reason, his
being seemed to become a seething furnace of passion that consumed him;
away from her, some strange, magnetic power kept bidding him return,
kept his mind picturing her, kept his thoughts upon her.  It was but
half an hour ago that, alone with her in the cottage, he had almost
utterly lost control of himself.

A hot flush was on his cheeks.  It was bad, that!  Some day he would
lose control of himself completely; some day the impulse to crush that
ravishing form in his arms, to look deep into those laughing,
self-possessed grey eyes until the laughter and the self-possession
were gone and he was master, would prove too strong for him.  And
then--what?

His hands clenched at his sides, the broad shoulders sloped a little
forward.  Well--what then?  His brain would not answer him, save only
with that persistent "she was a woman and he was a man."  He laughed
shortly aloud.  Was that true?  How true was it?  He glanced mockingly
at his clothes; his hands unclenched, and, feeling in a sort of
tentative way, slid along the gunwale of the boat.  Yes; it was quite
evident that he was what he had always been, what he always would be--a
fisherman.  It was quite evident too that he was mad.  It was only last
night that he had seen her for the first time, only since last night
that this enchantment had fallen upon him--and now it possessed him,
mind, soul and body.  One could not credit that!  He laughed out
again--and suddenly the laugh died on his lips.

He had heard no step upon the sand, but a hand now touched his arm.  He
turned quickly.  It was Marie-Louise.  He had forgotten all about
Marie-Louise--since yesterday evening.  He had seen her of course since
then, had walked home with her after that meeting on the bridge, had
called out for her when he had landed here on the beach a little while
ago, but for all that Marie-Louise had been forgotten.

"Jean"--she was speaking in a low, anxious voice--"it's--it's not true,
is it, Jean?"

The dark eyes were trying to smile through a troubled mist; the lips,
that he remembered he had likened yesterday to the divinely modelled
lips of that dream statue, were quivering now.

Jean stared at her.  What would she be like if she were dressed in
clothes, marvellous, dainty things, such as Myrna Bliss wore, with
little shoes and silken ankles?  She was pretty of course, Marie-Louise
had always been pretty; but there was not the physical thrill, the
witchery in the eyes that turned his head.  She was more sober--yes,
that was it--more sober.  Marie-Louise took things more seriously, and--

"Jean!"  She seemed almost frightened now in her appeal.  "Did you not
hear me?  Jean--it isn't true, is it?"

"True?" Jean roused himself with a little start.  "What is not true?  I
do not know what you are talking about."

"The beacon, Jean"--she spoke hurriedly, breathlessly now.  "A few
minutes ago mademoiselle told me to put it in the room she has chosen
for herself, and to be very careful of it because--because"--her voice
broke suddenly--"because she said that you had given it to her.
Jean--it's not true, is it?"

For a moment Jean did not speak.  There were tears in her eyes!  A
twinge of guilty confusion seized him.  Yes, it was so--Marie-Louise
had been forgotten.  Yesterday he had given it to Marie-Louise.  But
who would have thought it would make any difference to her--a thing
like that!  She was perhaps angry for the moment, but it would be only
for the moment.

"_Mais, sacre nom_!" he exclaimed, and forced a laugh.  "And what of
it?  It is nothing!  I will make you another."

She did not answer; but into the brown eyes came a miserable hurt, and
into the face a sudden whiteness.  It was only the day before that he
had given it to her, and had said it was a beacon, and that the beacon
was herself with arms outstretched to welcome him always.  It had meant
so much to her--and now it seemed to have meant so little to Jean.

Jean shifted uneasily, as she did not speak.

"I will make you another, Marie-Louise," he blurted out appeasingly.
"To-day--to-morrow--whenever you like, I will make you another.  Then
it will be all right, eh, _petite_?"

She shook her head--and the words came very slowly.

"You can never make another beacon, Jean."

"How--not another?" he cried impetuously.  "I can make a thousand!  Did
I not tell you that it was you--has it not those lips that I could
fashion even in the dark, even if you were far away from me!  _Tiens_,
do you not see--I could make a thousand!  And to-morrow you shall have
another."

The dark eyes were full.

"Was it yours to give, Jean?" she asked.

It was true!  He had nothing to say to that.  She was crying.  He was
angry now because he could say nothing, because there was no excuse for
what he had done--and yet he would do it again.  But he could not tell
Marie-Louise that though, _pardieu_!  She would only cry the harder.
And because she was right and he had nothing to say, he groped, angry
with himself, for some defence.

"Ah!" he burst out sharply.  "So that is it!  Yesterday you would have
thought nothing of it, but now you have been listening to what they
say, and you believe it all--that it is worth a great deal of money,
maybe a hundred francs, eh?  Well, it is not--it is worth nothing!  You
have nothing to cry over."

Wide-eyed, as though a whip-lash had curled across her face, she drew
back, her small hands shut tightly at her sides, as she looked at him.
And then somehow that little prayer that she had prayed to the _bon
Dieu_ last night came back to her--"make me that, _mon Pere_; make me
that--Jean's beacon all through my life"--and the bitter words that
were on her lips were crowded back, and she turned slowly away.

But now Jean caught her arm.

"No, no, Marie-Louise, I did not mean that!" he cried penitently.
"See, I did not mean that!"

She made no answer.  Her head was averted; her eyes fixed far out over
the water.

Jean bit his lips.  Certainly he had had no right to give it away, but
it was a small matter to make such a fuss over, and he had already
promised her another.  Was it possible that she had sensed anything of
the wild passion that had come upon him for this beautiful American!
Was she already jealous?  Well, it was easily knocked out of her head,
that--if one took the bull by the horns!  And if he were mad it was no
reason that hurt should come to Marie-Louise because of it.  Some day
it would be all over this madness, and was it not Marie-Louise and he
who were to make their little home together?  He forced a laugh again,
and caught her shoulders and drew her closer.

"Confess, Marie-Louise," he said teasingly, "that it is because I gave
it to another woman.  Is it not so, eh?  That you are--oh, _la,
la_!--that little Marie-Louise is jealous of mademoiselle."

Her head lifted, a new light suddenly in her eyes--one of incredulous
amazement.

"Jealous of mademoiselle!" she repeated wonderingly.  "Of mademoiselle
who is of the _grand monde_ and so far above us and not of our world at
all--and you who are a fisherman!  How could I be jealous?  How could
such a thing be possible?  Oh, Jean, don't you understand, it is not
that you gave it to her--it is that you gave it at all."

"But what does it matter, then," demanded Jean, inwardly relieved,
"since I will make you as many more as you please?  To-morrow you shall
have another much better than this one."

Footsteps sounded from the gravel walk on the cliff above; and
Marie-Louise, glancing around, lifted Jean's hands from her shoulders.

"I have told you, Jean, that you can never make another," she said,
with a little catch in her voice; then hurriedly: "It is mademoiselle
and her father coming to see you.  I must go."

"And I have told you," declared Jean, with sudden, fierce assertion,
"that I can make a thousand, and all better than this one!"

She bent her head to hide the blinding tears that were filling her eyes
again.  It meant nothing to him, that which had been so great a pledge
to her.  It was only a _poupee_, a clay doll, one of dozens that he had
given to the children to amuse them.  And the things he had said about
it meant nothing--they had only been words--only words, but she could
not forget them.  A little sob rose in her throat, and was choked
bravely back.  They were coming down the path now, mademoiselle and her
father, and she must go.

"You do not understand," she said brokenly--and, turning, ran quickly
along the beach.

For a space Jean watched her as she sped over the sand, until, ignoring
the path, she climbed lithely up the rocks at the far end of the beach,
and disappeared in the direction of the house.  His hand, a knotted
lump, drawn back for a smashing blow on the gunwale of the boat, a blow
that should relieve his feelings, opened hesitantly instead and passed
a little dazedly across his eyes.

"_Sacre maudit_!" he muttered in slow earnestness under his breath.

Since last night the world was upside-down!  Since last night he did
not know himself!  He knew nothing!  Only that all Bernay-sur-Mer was
changed.  That everything was changed.  That he had made Marie-Louise
cry.  That they had talked about that accursed piece of clay that had
made Marie-Louise cry, as though it were worth talking about!

"_Sacre maudit_!" muttered Jean again.  "What does it all mean?"

And then he was watching her, this glorious American, coming now along
the beach toward him with the man who Marie-Louise had said was
mademoiselle's father.

"Jean!"--she was calling out to him.  "Here is father at last!  Did you
think we were never coming?"

Two hands fell upon his shoulders, holding him off at arms' length; and
the man, with frank eagerness, was staring into his face.  Over her
father's shoulder, Myrna was laughing roguishly.

"So you are Jean Laparde?" Henry Bliss exclaimed heartily.  "Well,
well!  My daughter told me I would lose half my surprise when I had a
good look at you, and I am free to admit she was right."  One hand fell
from Jean's shoulder, caught Jean's hand and wrung it in a genial grip.
"Well, Jean, my boy, I want to say to you that if you will listen to
me, this will be a day that you will remember as long as you live."

From one to the other Jean stared bewilderedly.

"It is to the clay figure that monsieur refers, I know," he said
slowly; "but I do not understand.  Mademoiselle was kind enough to
praise it, but--"  He shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly.

"But--nothing!" laughed Henry Bliss impulsively.  "Here--sit down!"  He
sat down himself on the boat's gunwale, and turned to his daughter.
"Myrna, we're going to talk business--are you going to stay?"

"Of course, I'm going to stay!" she declared merrily, perching herself
beside her father and smiling up at Jean, who still remained standing.
"It will take both of us to convince him.  Jean, father wants to take
you to Paris."

"To Paris!"--the words came from Jean with a sort of startled jerk.
His eyes searched the two faces for an instant uncertainly, and then he
smiled incredulously.  "Mademoiselle is pleased to have a little joke
with me--yes?" he said quietly.

It was Henry Bliss who answered.

"Indeed, she is not!" he asserted, with brisk emphasis.  "That is
exactly what I have to propose, my boy.  My daughter tells me she
cannot make you believe that the superb little statue you have made
amounts to anything more than a gouged-out piece of mud.  I'm not so
much surprised that you have not sensed its actual worth, for I think
that almost invariably the really big men in art, the men of real
genius, are the last to appreciate themselves; but the astounding thing
is that you have seen nothing in it at all.  As a matter of fact, I
can't believe it.  It is impossible!  It is simply that you have given
it no thought.  Think a little about it, Jean.  How did you come to
make it?  How did you conceive it?  Where did you get your model?"

"But I do not know," said Jean a little absently--something, the fire,
the enthusiasm, the earnestness in the other's voice was kindling a
strange response within him.  "I do not know.  I think it was the
bronze statue in the great square of the city."

"The--what?" demanded Henry Bliss quickly.  "What city?  I know them
all--and I do not recall anything that could have served as a model for
you."

"And you told me, Jean," Myrna added, wagging her finger at him in
pretty reproach, "that you had never been away from Bernay-sur-Mer."

Jean laughed uncomfortably, self-consciously.

"It is nothing!" he said.  "You do not understand.  It is foolish!  The
statue and the square and the city are only in the dream that comes
sometimes."

"Ah--a dream!" ejaculated Henry Bliss, with a quick nod of his head.

"Oh, Jean!"  Myrna clapped her hands delightedly.  "Tell us about it."

"There is nothing to tell, mademoiselle," he replied, colouring.  "It
is just a dream that comes sometimes when I am fishing, when I lie
awake at night, when I am not thinking of it.  That is all,
mademoiselle.  It means nothing."

"It means a great deal!" said Henry Bliss, jumping excitedly to his
feet.  "And at least it should help you to understand that it is not so
impossible after all when I tell you that, barring little crudities of
technique that are a paltry consideration, there is no sculptor in
France to-day could produce a piece of work comparable to that which
you have done."

Jean's lips were slightly parted.  Excitement was upon him too.  A
strange stirring was in his soul.

"But I cannot believe that," he said in a low voice.

Henry Bliss's hands were on Jean's shoulders once more, pressing them
in a hard, earnest grip.

"Nevertheless, it is true!" he asserted forcibly, "You do not know me;
but those who do could tell you that I am qualified to speak.  And I
tell you that it is true.  I tell you that in Paris fame, wealth, the
greatest name in France awaits you!  You are through to-day with this
life forever, my boy, if you will come with me to Paris."

Fame, wealth, the greatest name in France!  Jean felt the blood leave
his face.  His brain seemed to whirl and to be afire.  Yes, those were
the words, and the man was not playing with him; but it was some wild
hallucination, some bizarre mistake.  To-day, to be through with the
hard, penniless life of a fisherman forever--and to work hereafter only
with what before had been his play!  No, that was not true--it could
not be true.  He meant well, this man, the father of the girl whose
eyes seemed to burn into his now and insist too that it was true, but
the little statue had been too easily done to be anything more than
perhaps a pretty little thing.  Fame, a great name--that strange
stirring of his soul again!  God, why had this man aroused that thought
within him, when it was not, could not be true?

"Monsieur," he said, and his voice in its hoarseness sounded strangely
in his own ears; "monsieur, has made a mistake.  It cannot be so."

"Think so!" returned Henry Bliss bluntly.  "I do not make mistakes of
that kind, my boy.  But I will convince you.  In a few days you will
see.  I have telegraphed for some of the famous critics of France, men
of the Academy, men whose names are known all over Europe, and they
will tell you what I have told you--and their despair that it is I, not
they, who have discovered you will be so pitifully genuine that even
you will understand.  And to-morrow we will motor to Marseilles and get
some modelling clay for you, and you will see for yourself what you can
do with that.  And then, Jean, you will go to Paris with me--and work."

"If it were true, if it should be true," said Jean numbly, "still I
could not go.  One does not make _sous_ enough at the fishing to go to
Paris."

"But, great heavens!" ejaculated Henry Bliss.  "That is precisely what
I am offering you, young man--money.  I am rich.  I will pay every
expense.  I will establish you."

Jean shook his head.

"I could not do that--take your money," he said simply.

"Couldn't take it!" exploded the American earnestly--and then he
laughed--and then grew serious once more.  "Listen, my boy!  I do not
want you to think for a moment that this is a purely charitable little
scheme on my part--far from it!  It is most of it, I am afraid, utter
selfishness.  I love art--for many years I have devoted myself to it.
I cannot create myself--God knows the miserable attempts and the
miserable failures that have been mine!--and so I have tried to help
others to do what I could not do myself"--Henry Bliss was smiling now
in a kindly, wistful way.  "And now to discover the greatest sculptor
of the age, to bring him out of obscurity into fame and power--can you
not see, Jean, how selfish I am?  And so why do you stand there
hesitating?"

Into Myrna's face, for the girl had risen and was now standing beside
them, into the man's face so close to his, Jean stared--and then his
eyes swept about him, over his surroundings.  It was magnificent, but
it was not reality--for here was the beach, and here was the boat, and
in the boat were his nets, and there was the nick in the handle of the
oar where he had fended off that night from the Perigeau Reef, and out
there, surf-splashed, was the reef itself, and his clothes were the
same rough, coarse clothes that he always wore just like every other
fisherman in Bernay-sur-Mer.  It was magnificent, but it was not
reality--and yet his heart was pounding with mighty hammer beats, and
the blood was surging fiercely through his veins.

"And as for the money," Henry Bliss went on quietly.  "You need have no
qualms on that score, my boy.  Pay it back by all means, if you'll feel
the better for it.  In a year, two years, you'll be a wealthy man.
Why, Jean, don't you understand--there isn't one of the men who will be
here shortly but would pay you any price you chose to ask for that
little statue you gave to my daughter here?  So, even on a basis of
dollars and cents alone, as it stands now, you couldn't owe me
anything, don't you see?"

What were they saying to him!  Fame, a great sculptor, wealth, a name,
his name, the name of Jean Laparde to be known throughout all France!
Why did it come back to him now, that night of the great storm when he
had stood and watched the scene, rapt and awed, on his way to
Marie-Louise?  What strange blasphemy was that, that had been his, that
had envied the _bon Dieu_ the creation of that mighty picture?

"Jean"--Myrna had caught his arm, her head was between her father's now
and his, the soft, bronzed hair for an instant brushed his forehead,
her breath was on his cheek, the grey eyes were smiling into
his--"Jean, wouldn't you like to go to Paris?"

To Paris!  She lived in Paris--she was always in Paris--always there.
A day, a week, two weeks, a month he would have seen her here--in Paris
there would be neither days nor weeks nor months to count.  The grey
eyes were veiled suddenly, demurely, under the long lashes--but the
little hand on his arm, with a quick, added pressure, remained.  His
head swam dizzily--there was an untamed, pulsing elation upon him, a
greed for her that racked and tormented him, a greed to clasp her head
between his hands and lift up her face and press kiss after kiss upon
those eyelids, that mouth, until in the very insatiability of his
passion she should fling her arms around his neck and return his
embrace!

"Yes--_yes_!" he said tensely, fiercely.  "_Mon Dieu_, yes--I would
like to go to Paris!"

Her hand fell from his arm.

"Oh, Jean--I'm so glad!"--it seemed as though she were whispering
softly to him.

"Good!" cried Henry Bliss enthusiastically, with a double slap on
Jean's shoulder.

Jean did not speak.  It was not easy in an instant to quench that fire
that was devouring him, it was not easy to understand that to-day all
his life was to be changed.  He looked at Myrna--the grey eyes were
gaily mocking him, as she nodded her head.  He looked at her
father--Henry Bliss was laughing ingenuously like a pleased school-boy.

"I know just how you feel!" said Henry Bliss genially.  "All up in the
air--eh?  Well, I feel that way myself.  It is the most amazing thing
that ever happened!  It seems as though there were a dozen questions I
wanted to ask you all at once.  And to begin with, those _poupees_ now,
how did you--no, hold on!  Myrna, we'll motor over to Marseilles for
the clay to-day, instead of waiting until to-morrow.  We'll have
something else to show old Bidelot by the time he gets here!  You go up
to the house and order an early luncheon.  Jean will join us, and we'll
have from now to Marseilles and back again to talk."

"Splendid!" agreed Myrna.  "You will, won't you, Jean?"

"I?" said Jean, in sudden dismay.  He, to eat with the _grand monde_!
But perhaps he had not understood--they would give him lunch with Jules
and Nanette and Marie-Louise.  He had heard Nanette make that very
plain to Marie-Louise a little while ago.  "I--I have my dinner with
me," he stammered, and pointed to a paper parcel in the stern of the
boat.  "I will be ready when mademoiselle and monsieur are ready."

"Oh, will you?" laughed Henry Bliss.  "Well, I guess not!  You'll come
up and lunch with Myrna and me."

"No," said Jean, embarrassed, "I--"

"Yes, you will," insisted Henry Bliss.

"Why, Jean," expostulated Myrna, "of course you will, we--" she stopped
abruptly.  "Oh!" she exclaimed.  "I think I know!  It's what that
stupid Nanette said to Marie-Louise about sitting at table with us,
isn't it?"

"What's that?" demanded Henry Bliss quickly.  "What has Marie-Louise to
do with--h'm--yes--I remember"--his face screwed up perplexedly.  "Her
fiance, she said--h'm--yes--it _is_ a bit awkward, isn't it?"

"It's nothing of the kind!" declared Myrna, and, with a laugh,
possessed herself of the paper parcel from the boat.  "It's quite a
different matter.  If only half of what father has said is true, Jean,
it would be an honour for any one to have Jean Laparde as a guest.  And
anyway I've got your lunch now!"  She waved it in the air, threatening
him merrily with it; then turned, and ran toward the house.  "You come
when you're called, sir!" she flung back over her shoulder, laughing
again.




-- VIII --

SHADOWS BEFORE

Who, in all France, a week ago, had heard of Bernay-sur-Mer?  Upon
whose lips to-day was not the name of that little Mediterranean
village?  Men, the great men of France, came at the bidding of their
confrere, the American millionaire art-critic; came sceptically--and
stayed to wonder.  And because there were no accommodations in
Bernay-sur-Mer, they made their headquarters at Marseilles, and their
daily pilgrimages from there; an arrangement that, if in a measure
inconvenient, was not without its compensation, for at Marseilles was
being made the plaster cast of that exquisite little figure, fashioned
so amazingly from scarcely more than mud, that marked a new epoch to
them in the world of sculpture, the birth of a supreme genius, a
surpassing glory for the art of France!

They came and watched Jean at his work; for there was clay now such as
Jean had never imagined, clay that seemed to give form itself, of its
own initiative, to wonderful conceptions.  They watched and marvelled;
and at night they carried him back with them to Marseilles to fete him,
until indeed to Jean the world of yesterday was as some vast haze,
befogged, that had shut down behind him.

"In a year, with the study of technique in Paris!" murmured Henry Bliss
ecstatically.

And old Bidelot, seventy years of age, grizzle-haired, the most
caustic, bitter critic of them all, stormed in his wrath.

"Technique!  You talk of technique--for _him_!  He is a school in
himself--a school that will revolutionise the art.  You talk of
technique for a genius awakened out of the sleep of ignorance, who in a
day accomplishes undying work that no other man in Paris, in Rome--bah!
where you will--could accomplish in twice a lifetime!  You are senile,
my poor friend Bliss--you are in your dotage!"

Jean Laparde!  Was it possible that this was Jean Laparde?  The simple
fisherfolk stared awe-struck at each other, at the metamorphosis that
had come to Bernay-sur-Mer, at the great people who came and went, to
whom one instinctively lifted one's hat--the great people who now
lifted their hats to Jean.  It was true!  Could they not see with their
own eyes?  One, too, then, should lift one's hat to Jean.  And did not
the good Father Anton read to them from the newspapers that all France
was ringing with the name of Jean Laparde?

"_Sacre nom d'un miracle_!" swore Pierre Lachance heavily.  "And once
he made clay _poupees_ for little Ninon!  _Bon Dieu_, think of that!"

Bernay-sur-Mer had set Jean apart, above itself.

But the old cure was troubled in his heart.  And one night, after a
week had gone since the American strangers had come to Bernay-sur-Mer,
Father Anton shook his head over his newspaper as he read of Jean
Laparde--and found difficulty with his spectacles, for his thoughts
were of Marie-Louise.

It was only a week ago that she had come to him so happily, so gladly,
the proud light in her eyes, to talk of the great thing Jean had
done--and she had changed a great deal in the week.  The proud light
would come back quickly enough at mention of Jean, but she had grown
strangely quiet and silent.  And Jean, too, had changed.  It seemed, as
indeed it was true, that Jean was no longer one of the village.

The old priest took off his offending spectacles, rubbed them with his
handkerchief, and replaced them only to find that the mistiness was in
his own wet eyes.

Jean did not seem the same in his new clothes.  Of course, it was quite
natural that Jean should have discarded his fisherman's dress.
Mademoiselle Bliss had said very truly that though it might be
picturesque in Bernay-sur-Mer, in Paris it would be only eccentric; and
besides, to go to Marseilles with his new friends of his new world, one
needed to be dressed as they were not to be ridiculous.  Monsieur Bliss
had been very generous.  The American was very whole-heartedly
interested in his protege.  Jean would lack for nothing that either
money or influence could procure.

But it was not only the clothes--Jean himself had changed.  Father
Anton shook his head again slowly.  It had come gradually during the
week, and he, who loved Jean as a son, had not failed to see it.  At
first it had been amazement, bewilderment, incredulity, then a dawning
belief in the genius of his power that they preached to him, and then a
fierce assurance that it was so; it had begun with wonder at the
camaraderie with which the famous men who had come there treated him,
at the respect that Bernay-sur-Mer paid to him--and it had ended with
the acceptance of it as his due, and had come to be looked for with a
tinge of arrogance as though he had drunk of heady wine.  Yes, it was a
change!  Jean was afire now, a different man, consumed, possessed with
the lure of fame, the golden vista that was before his eyes, steeping
his soul in it, reaching out to it, straining toward it like a young
eagle that suddenly liberated from captivity takes wings to the great
void.

And so the paper slid unheeded to the floor from the old priest's knees
that night, a week after the American strangers had come to
Bernay-sur-Mer, and the spectacles were removed again--but this time
the eyes were wiped.  He was glad for Jean, proud in his love for the
greatness that was to come--but somehow in his heart there was sadness,
too.  It seemed that between Marie-Louise and Jean a shadow crept, and
lengthened, and there was a parting of the ways.

"I love you both, my children, Marie-Louise and Jean," the old cure
whispered.  "I am an old man.  Perhaps I am foolish in my fears.  I
pray the good God for you both."




-- IX --

FORKED ROADS

It was the room Myrna Bliss had occupied.  Mother Fregeau had insisted;
Jacques Fregeau had implored.  It was fitting that the best at the Bas
Rhone should be Jean's.  The little back room that had been his for ten
years was quite impossible.  It was different now.  It would be but to
make him ridiculous--what with all these grand strangers that were
around him!  And besides, _merveille du bon Dieu_, was he not now
himself the greatest of the great ones!

In through the window the late afternoon sun played over the faded
wallpaper of the _chambre de luxe_; from without there was the hum of
voices, exclamations of amazement, cries of delight and admiration, the
curious composite sound of a gathered, eager crowd.  And Jean, well
back from the sill that he might not be seen, glanced outside, it was
his--his!  The work that he had done during the past week in the
_atelier_ they had made for him in the barn behind the Bas Rhone!  It
was finished!  Monsieur Bidelot was exhibiting it now to
Bernay-sur-Mer.  The great Academician was standing in the tonneau of
the automobile and holding it up for every one to look at--the
fisherman with his boat and net in clay.  Ah, they understood that, the
people of Bernay-sur-Mer!  But they understood only that it was
magnificent because Bidelot and Monsieur Bliss and the great men who
had come amongst them told them that it was magnificent.

For years he had made the _poupees_, and they had seen nothing--and he
had seen nothing.  But now they knew because they were told; and now he
knew because his soul, his brain was ablaze with the knowledge of
creative power, because what had gone before was nothing, because what
was to come would sweep the past, that little thing that Bidelot in his
emotion cried over, into insignificance.

He drew back, his head high; his outflung arms, hands clenched,
stretched heavenward.  These strangers, these great critics had said
it, and it was so!  The name of Jean Laparde would never die!

He stripped off the long sculptor's apron that covered him from neck to
knees, and held it out at arm's length, gazing first at it and then at
the rough fisherman's clothes that hung, where Mother Fregeau had
placed them, on the end peg on the wall--a little apart, significantly
it seemed, whether by accident or design, from the new clothes that had
come from Marseilles.  And then he laughed out suddenly in a quick,
exalted way, and tossed the apron on the bed.  It was all changed,
that!  He was through with the fisherman's dress, he was through with
Bernay-sur-Mer!  To-night he was to dine with Bidelot and a score of
others in Marseilles, and after that in a few days it would be--Paris.

He undressed hurriedly, and began to dress again in a clean suit--but a
little slowly now, none too deftly.  They were still strange to him
these clothes; but then everything was strange.  The people around him
were strange.  At times he felt awkward, constrained in their
presence--and at times he could laugh down at them as from a superior
height.  Ay, he could laugh--they were at his feet!  Only--he frowned
heavily--he could not laugh at Myrna Bliss.  He was not master there!
And yet she, somehow, did not erect the barrier.  It was himself that
did that--because he could not forget that behind the roguish smile in
the grey eyes might lurk the thought that, after all, he was only a
fisherman.

A fisherman!  They were cheering now outside.  His hands shut tightly.
A fisherman!  He was no longer a fisherman!  He was Jean Laparde, a
sculptor of France, a man before whom lay a path of glory, a man whom
the nation would acclaim, a man of whose future all stood in envy!
They had told him that, these men whom France had already honoured,
these men who had accepted him as more than their equal.  But there was
no need for them to tell him--he knew it in his soul.  None, no man,
the world itself, could hold back now the genius of Jean Laparde!

Paris!  He was pacing the room now, his eyes afire.  To-morrow or the
next day, when the Blisses had made their plans, Paris and fame was
his.  What a life it was that now opened out before him!  A place
amongst the highest, the world to resound with the name of Jean
Laparde--and those grey eyes, that bronze hair, that glorious beauty of
the American--God! he would immortalise her in clay, in bronze, in
marble.

Ay, they might well cheer while the chance was theirs, these people of
Bernay-sur-Mer!  To-morrow or the next day he would be saying good-bye
to them, and--he stood suddenly still--and good-bye, too, to
Marie-Louise.  The thought put a damper upon his spirits; his brows
gathered in deep furrows of impatient perplexity.

He had not seen much of Marie-Louise in the last week--he had seen her
scarcely at all.  Only twice--when she with many others had stood in
the doorway to watch his work.  She had smiled at him then, as though
it were her work, too, as though it were a joint proprietorship--but
she had gone before he could speak to her.  And at the cottage, when he
had been there at the invitation of Myrna or her father, Marie-Louise,
strangely enough, now that he thought of it, was never to be seen.

He would have to speak to her, of course, about going away; but what
chance, with the whirl he had been in, had he had to do it?  She would
know that he was going to Paris, for everybody knew it--but he would
have to speak to her himself about it before he went.  And what was he
to say?  Certainly, he loved Marie-Louise--but the great chance of his
life was before him.  What was he to say to her?  He would go to Paris
for a time, make this great name for himself, and then
afterwards--_what_?

He refused to tolerate the question.  He had refused to tolerate it all
week.  It was enough for the present that he was going for a time to
Paris.  Marie-Louise was sensible enough not to make a scene.  She
could see readily enough that he must go and that she must stay.  How,
for instance, could she associate with women of fashion and society
like Myrna Bliss, who would be the women of the new world that must
necessarily form part of his life hereafter.  What was he thinking of?
Was it the "afterwards" again?  Was he not coming back to Marie-Louise?
Was he choosing now between his art and Marie-Louise?  No; he was
not--he would not!  That was an issue for the future.  It would work
itself out.  Why should he plague himself about it!

He loved Marie-Louise, of course; but it would have been easier now if
there had been nothing between them.  He could not go to Marie-Louise
and say: Marie-Louise, I love you; but it is finished--you can see that
the _grand monde_ would make a very great difference between Jean
Laparde, the great sculptor, and Marie-Louise the fisherwoman of
Bernay-sur-Mer.  No; he could not say that, but--_sacre nom_!--was he
back to the everlasting "afterwards" again, when he refused so
resolutely to go beyond the present?  Was it not enough that he was
simply going to Paris for a time--a matter that would seem natural
enough to her, and of which she would be glad because great things had
come to him?  He would talk to her like that--that would be
enough--Marie-Louise was a sensible girl.  One could not say to her
that it would be better to finish everything, he would never say that
to Marie-Louise--but if, _par example_, he and Marie-Louise had never
talked of the marriage there would be nothing now to trouble him.
And--he swung around sharply as a knock sounded on the door.

"Come!" he called.

Papa Fregeau stuck in his head.

"_Pardon_, Monsieur Jean"--it was "monsieur" now--"it is Mademoiselle
Bliss who is alone in the cafe below.  Will Monsieur Jean see her for a
moment before he goes out?"

"In an instant," Jean answered quickly.  "Tell mademoiselle that I will
be there in an instant."

Papa Fregeau hesitated, stared about the room, and stared at Jean, his
fat cheeks grotesquely expanded--and his arms rose suddenly in a
gesture of profound helplessness.

"_Mon Dieu_!" he muttered heavily.  "Is it possible that it is our
little Jean there--ah, _pardon_"--he stammered--"_Monsieur_ Jean"--and
made a hasty exit from the room, as though utterly confounded at his
own temerity.

But Jean, following his reply, had paid no further attention to Papa
Fregeau.  He had learned to knot the long, flowing tie that Myrna had
chosen as part of his dress, for she had said, had she not, that it was
the tie the artists wore in Paris?  He knotted it now with extra care,
put on his coat, snatched up his hat, and ran downstairs to the cafe
below.

She was waiting for him back by the little _comptoir_ where he had
stood that evening when she had first spoken to him.  She had been like
a glorious vision that had burst suddenly upon him that evening--she
was a thousand times more glorious now, for her smile was eager with an
intimacy that promised--what did it promise?  He did not know.  It was
there--and her eyes were shining, and the white throat was divinely
beautiful--and the thrill of her presence quickened the beat of his
heart.

Her laugh rang through the room, silver-toned.

"Jean," she cried merrily, "you are harder to see these days than a
prime minister!  What do you mean, sir?  Have you deserted us?"

"_Ma foi_!" protested Jean, a little anxiously.  "Mademoiselle does not
mean that!  Was I not at lunch with her to-day, and yesterday, and the
day before that?"

"Yes, and all day at the work, and every evening in Marseilles"--she
manufactured a dainty pout through her smile.  "And even now that I
have snatched a little moment, I must not keep you for they are waiting
for you outside."

"Let them wait!" said Jean tensely.

"Oh, no; we mustn't do that," she said laughingly, shaking her head.
"So listen, Jean.  I have come to tell you that--can you guess what?
That you are not going to Paris with us after all."

"Not going to Paris!"--Jean gazed at her bewilderedly, as he repeated
the words.

"With _us_--silly boy!" she smiled teasingly.  "Are you disappointed?"

She teased, and mocked, and delighted him, and fired his blood by
amazing and elusive turns.  He could not cope with her yet.

"But mademoiselle knows," he blundered.  "I--I do not understand.  It
is a great disappointment."

"Then it mustn't be!" she declared brightly.  "For it is my idea, and
if you are not pleased with it, it is I who will be terribly
disappointed.  It is just a little while ago that father and I arranged
the plans.  We are to go to-morrow direct to Paris, and as soon as we
get there--now listen very attentively, Jean!--we are going to pick out
an _atelier_ for you and fit it up.  And you are not to come until we
send you word that everything is ready.  And the day you arrive I shall
be hostess at the studio at a reception to which all Paris will be
invited.  Everybody that is worth while will come, and your entree will
be a triumph.  Now, Jean, will that not be splendid?"

She was smiling at him, vivacious, flushed with excitement.
Splendid--yes, it would be splendid!  An entree to Paris like that!  It
was the first tangible glimpse of reality out of the chaotic blaze of
luring, golden dreams.

"It--it is too good of mademoiselle!" he stammered excitedly.

Low, musical, her laugh rippled through the room again, as she looked
at him.  The man was magnificent--the head, the shoulders, the splendid
strength, the mobile, changing lights and shadows in his face like a
child who had not yet learned to mask its emotions, and all this
coupled with the deliciously picturesque background of the discovery of
his art, would make him the rage in Paris.  Paris would literally go
wild over him!  And she?  Well, he would be still more a new sensation
than ever--and perhaps, who knew?--but the man was too easily
aroused--and then there was the possibility that her father, that
Bidelot and the others had overrated him, that he would be but the
phenomenon of the moment, only to sink after a while into uninteresting
mediocrity--she would see.  But for the present at least Paris would
echo and re-echo with the name of Jean Laparde.  Her eyebrows arched
demurely, innocently.  There was something else she had to say to Jean.
She had never spoken to him of Marie-Louise--naturally.  But she must
speak now.  Marie-Louise, a peasant girl, a bare-footed fisherwoman, in
Paris as Jean's fiancee was perfectly impossible!

"Jean," she said ingenuously, "you know we took the cottage without
much formality as far as any definite length of time was concerned.  Of
course we expected to stay longer, and if all this had not happened we
certainly should have done so.  So, do you think, when we speak to
Marie-Louise about going, that she would be perfectly satisfied with a
month's rent?  I told father I would ask you."

Jean's face clouded.

"You have not told Marie-Louise then that you are going to-morrow?" he
asked slowly.

"How could we--when we did not know ourselves until a little while
ago?" she answered.

"No; that is so," he said.  Then, with a short, conscious laugh: "I
have not spoken to Marie-Louise myself."

"Of course you haven't!" she returned quickly, "And you have been wise."

"Wise?"--Jean looked at her, puzzled.

"Marie-Louise is not blind," said Myrna quietly.  "It is far better
that she should have seen things for herself--and she could not help
seeing them during the last week."

"You mean?" Jean began--and stopped.

"You know what I mean, Jean," she said gravely.  "That she must have
seen what everybody else sees--what you see yourself.  That if she ever
had any idea of going to Paris with you, it is quite out of the
question.  It is different now--everything is changed.  You are not a
fisherman any longer; you have a great place to take in the world that
she cannot take beside you.  A week in Paris and, even if neither of
you see it now, you would both see it only too bitterly and clearly
then.  For both your sakes it is better settled now."

Jean was staring across the room to where, outside, the crowd was
packed densely in the road.  Had he not thought of just those things
that she had been saying?  Had he not thought of them all week?  They
were true; but still there was Marie-Louise who--what was that?  They
were cheering him there outside--it made his blood tingle, he felt the
mad elation of it, his soul seemed to leap out to meet the acclaim!

"But that is not all, Jean"--she was speaking again.  "There is another
thing, something you owe to--oh, how shall I say it?--to your country,
and--"  She stopped suddenly and caught his arm.  "Listen!" she
breathed.  "Listen!"

It was Bidelot, the great Academician, his voice raised in impassioned
words.  Through the window they could see him standing, bare-headed, in
the automobile.

"... Bernay-sur-Mer will evermore live in the hearts of Frenchmen--you
have given to France the immortal name of Jean Laparde."

Her hands, both of them now, were clasped tightly on his arm.

"Jean!" she whispered.  "Jean!"

"_Mon Dieu_!"--the words came hoarsely from Jean's throat.  They were
cheering again.  He moved, like iron impelled to the magnet, across the
room.  He looked at Myrna.  He had never seen her eyes so bright.

"It is only the beginning, Jean"--she seemed half hysterical herself.
"But in Paris, Jean--in Paris you shall see!"

They were at the door, and suddenly she flung it wide open.  There was
a roar of voices.  She was smiling at him from the doorway.  They were
shouting his name.  They rushed at him, and, lifting him shoulder high,
carried him to the automobile.  Fame--was this only a taste of it?  No
more than that?  In Paris--what was it he should see in Paris?  They
were shouting again.  It was like some fiery draught that his soul was
drinking in.  He craved it with a lust that was passionate,
all-possessing.  He cried out to those around him.  He did not know
what he said.  And then Bidelot was speaking to him, and the automobile
was whirling down the road, followed by the shouts of all
Bernay-sur-Mer.

All Bernay-sur-Mer?  No; not all.  For as the car flashed by, halfway
between the little bridge and the eastern headland, the fringe of
bushes by the roadside parted, a dark head lifted, and Marie-Louise
gazed after it.  It was all so strange, and she could not quite
understand.  Once, twice before, on other evenings, she had watched the
car pass.  They were all of the great world those men with Jean in the
car; of the great world of which she knew nothing, only that the
village spoke of the strangers with awe.  And now Jean was one of
them--and they seemed so proud of him, so proud to make him one of
themselves, these great men.  And she was proud of him, too, oh, so
proud and glad and happy--only back of it all was a little chill of
dread and fear, and she could not quite understand.  She had smiled at
Jean from the edge of the crowd that was clustered around the door of
the barn those days when he had been working at the clay--and then she
had stolen away and cried so bitterly.  She did not know why she had
done that.  If only some one would tell her what it all meant!  Was it
because Jean was going away for a little time?  The dark eyes widened
slowly.  Was it only for a little time?  She had not talked to Jean
since that morning on the beach, and that was so long, long ago.  It
wasn't Jean's fault, though, nearly so much as hers.  She had really
tried to evade him.  No, not to evade Jean; but to evade the others out
of the shyness and diffidence for the great strangers who were now
constantly around him.  Would there be always these strangers around
him?

She drew herself up suddenly, her small hands fiercely clenched.  She
hated these strangers!  That was it!  They were always coming between
Jean and herself!  They were always there!  They made of Jean a
different man; they made him one of themselves, and in doing that they
were snatching him away from her, taking him across what seemed like
some vast gulf that she could not traverse herself.  She hated this
Monsieur American, and this mademoiselle; and she hated the day they
had come, for it had all begun that day.  The red burned angrily in her
cheeks, the lithe form quivered in a quick rush of passion--and then,
instantly penitent, with a little sob, she flung herself down upon the
grass.

No; she did not hate them!  What had she said!  The _bon Dieu_ would be
very angry with her for that.  And they had been very kind and good to
her, this monsieur and this mademoiselle.  And to hate all the others
was to commit a sin, for were they not there because Jean--she raised
her head quickly, parting the bushes again, as she caught the sound of
steps and voices from the road.

It was Monsieur Bliss speaking in French to Father Anton, who walked
between Monsieur Bliss and mademoiselle.

"Why should he not work here?  Why should he go to Paris?  What a
question, my dear Monsieur le Cure!  It is because here is nothing;
because in Paris there is everything.  It is there that he will study
the great works of famous sculptors; it is there that he will have
models and facilities for his work; it is there that he will have
inspiration from the art around him; it is there that, with his genius,
he will sift and choose, profiting from the different schools even as
he creates a new one for himself; and it is there that the leading men
of France will unite with the social world to make the name of Jean
Laparde known and honoured wherever art is known."

"But," said Father Anton anxiously, "but he will come back--to
Marie-Louise."

Henry Bliss's hand fell sympathetically upon the old priest's shoulder,
as he shook his head.

"I do not know," he said soberly.  "Who can tell?  It depends upon
Jean--and Marie-Louise.  Frankly, I do not think he will come back, for
there is always the danger that the greater he becomes the greater will
become the distance between them--and Jean will unquestionably become a
national figure.  But it is a vastly different thing with him than it
is with her.  It is innate in him to take that place gracefully, even
as his genius is innate in him.  To her, I am afraid, it would be an
impossible and an impracticable life.  It is likely she would be
miserable to begin with and feel herself a drag upon him, for, we must
admit, she could not, as we say in America, hold up her end in his new
life.  It is one of those tragedies of life, isn't it, that we cannot
shape one way or the other?  It is something they alone must work out.
It is not a little matter, this future of Jean's.  France has claimed
Jean, Monsieur le Cure, and it may well be, as Myrna here said a moment
ago, there is no place in his new life for Marie-Louise.  I--"

They had passed on.

It seemed to Marie-Louise that she was very cold, that somehow she
could not move.  There were three figures out there on the road walking
along.  It was very strange that so ordinary a thing as that should be
taking place.  She seemed to be numbed, to be waiting somehow for a
return to consciousness.  Was that consciousness that was returning
now, was that it--this dull, monotonous pain?  And that great choking
in her heart--what was that?  She was standing erect, and words were
quivering on her lips.

"There is no place in his new life for Marie-Louise."

She was staring out before her; but the road, and, beyond it, the white
beach, and, beyond that again, the blue of the sea with the great
golden shaft of light from the setting sun upon it was gone--and there
was only nothingness.  Only her lips moved.

"There is no place--in his new life--for Marie-Louise."




-- X --

A DAUGHTER OF FRANCE

How still the house was!  Only once during the night had Marie-Louise
heard a sound as she had sat, dressed, by the window in the little
attic room.  And that sound had been the whir of an automobile rushing
by on the road--it had been Jean returning from Marseilles.  That was
while it was very dark, very long ago--now it was daylight again, and
the sun was streaming into the room.

The chaste, sweet face was tired and weary and aged a little; but on
the lips, sensitive, delicate, making even more beautiful their
contour, was a brave, resolute little smile, as her eyes rested on the
small white bed, neatly made, unslept in.  It was over now, the fight
that had been so hard and so cruel to fight; and she needed only the
courage to go on to the end.

Over and over again, all through the night, she had thought it out.
She loved Jean.  She loved Jean so much!  She had trembled once when
she had tried to think how much, and the thought had come so quickly,
before she could arrest it, that she loved Jean as much as she loved
God--and then she had prayed the _bon Dieu_ not to be angry with her
for the sin, for she had not meant to think such thoughts as that.

It was true what they had said when they had passed by on the road
yesterday evening.  There was no place in his new life for her.  A
hundred little things all through the week had shown her that, only,
until yesterday evening when Monsieur Bliss had spoken, she had not
understood what they meant--Nanette, that first day, when Jean had come
to lunch with mademoiselle and monsieur; the curious, side-long glances
that th

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