Part 21 (1/2)

”I never saw you so interested in a place,” she observed, with a fretful side glance. ”The travelling agents and loquacious peasants never seem to bore you.”

”But I do not talk to the agents, and I do not find the others loquacious; neither would I call them peasants.”

”It doesn't matter what you call them. They are all beneath you.”

Vesper looked meditatively across the Bay at a zigzag, woolly trail of smoke made by a steamer that was going back and forth in a distressed way, as if unable to find the narrow pa.s.sage that led to the Bay of Fundy.

”The Checkertons have gone to the White Mountains,” said Mrs. Nimmo, in a vexed tone, as if the thought gave her no pleasure. ”I should like to join them there.”

”Very well, we can leave here to-morrow.”

Her face brightened. ”But your business?”

”I can send some one to look after it, or Agapit would attend to it.”

”And you would not need to come back?”

”Not necessarily. I might do so, however.”

”In the event of some of the LeNoirs being found?”

”In the event of my not being able to exist without--the Bay.”

”Give me the Charles River,” said Mrs. Nimmo, hastily. ”It is worth fifty Bays.”

”To me also,” said Vesper; ”but there is one family here that I should like to transplant to the banks of the Charles.”

Mrs. Nimmo did not speak until they had pa.s.sed through long Comeauville and longer Saulnierville, and were entering peaceful Meteghan River with its quietly flowing stream and gra.s.sy meadows. Then having partly subdued the first shock of having a horror of such magnitude presented to her, she murmured, ”Are you sure that you know your own mind?”

”Quite sure, mother,” he said, earnestly and affectionately; ”but now, as always, my first duty is to you.”

Tears sprang to her eyes, and ran quietly down her cheeks. ”When you lay ill,” she said, in a repressed voice, ”I sat by you. I prayed to G.o.d to spare your life. I vowed that I would do anything to please you, yet, now that you are well, I cannot bear the idea of giving you up to another woman.”

Vesper looked over his shoulder, then guided Toochune up by one of the gay gardens before the never-ending row of houses in order to allow a hay-wagon to pa.s.s them. When they were again in the middle of the road, he said, ”I, too, had serious thoughts when I was ill, but you know how difficult it is for me to speak of the things nearest my heart.”

”I know that you are a good son,” she said, pa.s.sionately. ”You would give up the woman of your choice for my sake, but I would not allow it, for it would make you hate me,--I have seen so much trouble in families where mothers have opposed their sons' marriages. It does no good, and then--I do not want you to be a lonely old man when I'm gone.”

”Mother,” he said, protestingly.

”How did it happen?” she asked, suddenly composing herself, and dabbing at her face with her handkerchief.

Vesper's face grew pale, and, after a short hesitation, he said, dreamily, ”I scarcely know. She has become mixed up with my life in an imperceptible way, and there is an inexpressible something about her that I have never found in any other woman.”

Mrs. Nimmo struggled with a dozen conflicting thoughts. Then she sighed, miserably, ”Have you asked her to marry you?”

”No.”

”But you will?”

”I do not know,” he said, reluctantly. ”I have nothing planned. I wish to tell you, to save misunderstandings.”

”She has some crotchet against marriage,--she told me so this morning.