Part 37 (2/2)
”Rose,” said Vesper, caressingly, ”shall I go to see Charlitte?”
”Yes, yes,” she moaned, desperately, and sinking to a chair, she dropped her swimming head on the table.
”No,” said Agapit, again, ”you shall not break G.o.d's laws. Rose is married to Charlitte.”
Vesper tried to pa.s.s him, to a.s.sist Rose, who was half fainting, but Agapit's burly form was immovable, and the furious young American lifted his arm to strike him.
”_Nani_,” said Agapit, tossing his arm in the air, ”two blows from no man for me,” and he promptly knocked Vesper down.
Rose, shocked and terrified, instantly recovered. She ran to her fallen hero, bent over him with fond and distracted words, and when he struggled to his feet, and with a red and furious face would have flown at Agapit, she restrained him, by clinging to his arm.
”Dear fools,” said Agapit, ”I would have saved you this humbling, but you would not listen. It is now time to part. The doctor comes up the road.”
Vesper made a superhuman effort at self-control, and pa.s.sed his hand over his eyes, to clear away the mists of pa.s.sion. Then he looked through the kitchen window. The doctor was indeed driving up to the inn.
”Good-by, Rose,” he exclaimed, ”and do you, Agapit,” and he surveyed the Acadien in bitter resentment, ”treat Charlitte as you have treated me, if he comes for her.”
Even in her despair Rose reflected that they were parting in anger.
”Vesper, Vesper,--most darling of men,” she cried, wildly, detaining him, ”shake hands, at least.”
”I will not,” he muttered, then he gently put her from him, and flung himself from the room.
”One does not forget those things,” said Agapit, gloomily, and he followed her out-of-doors.
Vesper, staggering so that he could hardly mount his wheel, was just about to leave the yard. Rose clung to the doorpost, and watched him; then she ran to the gate.
Down, down the Bay he went; farther, farther, always from her. First the two s.h.i.+ning wheels disappeared, then his straight blue back, then the curly head with the little cap. She had lost him,--perhaps forever; and this time she fainted in earnest, and Agapit carried her to the kitchen, where the English doctor, who had been the one to attend Vesper, stood, with a shrewd and pitying look on his weather-beaten face.
BOOK II.
BIDIANE
CHAPTER I.
A NEW ARRIVAL AT SLEEPING WATER.
”But swift or slow the days will pa.s.s, The longest night will have a morn, And to each day is duly born A night from Time's inverted gla.s.s.”
--_Aminta._
Five years have pa.s.sed away,--five long years. Five times the Acadien farmers have sown their seeds. Five times they have gathered their crops. Five times summer suns have smiled upon the Bay, and five times winter winds have chilled it. And five times five changes have there been in Sleeping Water, though it is a place that changes little.
Some old people have died, some new ones have been born, but chief among all changes has been the one effected by the sometime presence, and now always absence, of the young Englishman from Boston, who had come so quietly among the Acadiens, and had gone so quietly, and yet whose influence had lingered, and would always linger among them.
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