Part 24 (1/2)
”Rose!” said her cousin, in sudden dismay. ”Rose--Rose!”
”What is the matter with thee?” she asked, alarmed in her turn by his strange agitation.
”Hush,--walk aside with me. Now tell me, what is this?”
”Narcisse has been a trouble,” began Rose, hurriedly; then she calmed herself. ”I will not deceive thee,--it is not Narcisse, though he has worried me. Agapit, I wish to go home.”
”I will send thee; but be quiet, speak not above thy breath. Tell me, has this Englishman--”
”The Englishman has done nothing,” said Rose, brokenly, ”except that in two days he goes back to the world.”
”And dost thou care? Stop, let me see thy face. Rose, thou art like a sister to me. My poor one, my dear cousin, do not cry. Come, where is thy dignity, thy pride? Remember that Acadien women do not give their hearts; they must be begged.”
”I remember,” she said, resolutely. ”I will be strong. Fear not, Agapit, and let us return. The women will be staring.”
She brushed her hand over her face, then by a determined effort of will summoned back her lost composure, and with a firm, light step rejoined the group that they had just left.
”_Mon Dieu!_” muttered Agapit, ”my pleasure is gone, and I was lately so happy. I thought of this nightmare, and yet I did not imagine it would come. I might have known,--he is so calm, so cool, so handsome. That kind charms women and men too, for I also love him, yet I must give him up. Rose, my sister, thou must not go home early. I must keep thee here and suffer with thee, for, until the Englishman leaves, thou must be kept from him as a little bunch of tow from a slow fire. Does he already love thee? May the holy saints forbid--yes--no, I cannot tell. He is inscrutable. If he does, I think it not. If he does not, I think it so.”
CHAPTER XV.
THE CAVE OF THE BEARS.
”I had found out a sweet green spot, Where a lily was blooming fair; The din of the city disturbed it not; But the spirit that shades the quiet cot With its wings of love was there.
”I found that lily's bloom When the day was dark and chill; It smiled like a star in a misty gloom, And it sent abroad a sweet perfume, Which is floating around me still.”
PERCIVAL.
More than twenty miles beyond Sleeping Water is a curious church built of cobblestones.
Many years ago, the devoted priest of this parish resolved that his flock must have a new church, and yet how were they to obtain one without money? He pondered over the problem for some time, and at last he arrived at a satisfactory solution. Would his paris.h.i.+oners give time and labor, if he supplied the material for construction?
They would,--and he pointed to the stones on the beach. The Bay already supplied them with meat and drink, they were now to obtain a place of wors.h.i.+p from it. They worked with a will, and in a short time their church went up like the temple of old, without the aid of alien labor.
Vesper, on the day after the picnic, had announced his intention of visiting this church, and Agapit, in unconcealed disapproval and slight vexation, stood watching him clean his wheel, preparatory to setting out on the road down the Bay.
He would be sure to overtake Rose, who had shortly before left the inn with Narcisse. She had had a terrible scene with the child relative to the approaching departure of the American, and Agapit himself had advised her to take him to her stepmother. He wished now that he had not done so, he wished that he could prevent Vesper from going after her,--he almost wished that this quiet, imperturbable young man had never come to the Bay.
”And yet, why should I do that?” he reflected, penitently. ”Does not good come when one works from honest motives, though bad only is at first apparent? Though we suffer now, we may yet be happy,” and, casting a long, reluctant look at the taciturn young American, he rose from his comfortable seat and went up-stairs. He was tired, out of sorts, and irresistibly sleepy, having been up all night examining the old doc.u.ments left by his uncle, the priest, in the hope of finding something relating to the Fiery Frenchman, for he was now as anxious to conclude Vesper's mission to the Bay as he had formerly been to prolong it.
With a quiet step he crept past the darkened room where Mrs. Nimmo, after worrying her son by her insistence on doing her own packing, had been obliged to retire, in a high state of irritation, and with a raging headache.
He hoped that the poor lady would be able to travel by the morrow; her son would be, there was no doubt of that. How well and strong he seemed now, how immeasurably he had gained in physical well-being since coming to the Bay.
”For that we should be thankful,” said Agapit, in sincere admiration and regard, as he stood by his window and watched Vesper spinning down the road.
”He goes so cool, so careless, like those soldiers who went to battle with a rose between their lips, and I do not dare to warn, to question, lest I bring on what I would keep back. But do thou, my cousin Rose, not linger on the way. It would be better for thee to bite a piece from thy little tongue than to have words with this handsome stranger whom I fear thou lovest. Now to work again, and then, if there is time, half an hour's sleep before supper, for my eyelids flag strangely.”