Part 15 (2/2)

This was the story of Rosalie which Mrs. Flynn told Charley, as he stood at the street door of the post-office. When she had finished, Charley went back into the room where Rosalie sat beside the sick man's couch, the hound at her feet. She came forward, surprised, for he had bade her good-bye but a few minutes before.

”May I sit and watch for an hour longer, Mademoiselle?” he said. ”You will have your duties in the post-office.”

”Monsieur--it is good of you,” she answered.

For two hours Charley watched her going in and out, whispering directions to Mrs. Flynn, doing household duty, bringing warmth in with her, and leaving light behind her.

It was afternoon when he returned to his bench in the tailor-shop, and was received by old Louis Trudel in peevish silence. For an hour they worked in silence, and then the tailor said:

”A brave girl--that. We will work till nine to-night!”

CHAPTER XV. THE MARK IN THE PAPER

Chaudiere was nearing the last of its nine-days' wonder. It had filed past the doorway of the tailor-shop; it had loitered on the other side of the street; it had been measured for more clothes than in three months past--that it might see Charley at work in the shop, cross-legged on a bench, or wielding the goose, his eye gla.s.s in his eye. Here was sensation indeed, for though old M. Rossignol, the Seigneur, had an eye-gla.s.s, it was held to his eye--a large bone-bound thing with a little gold handle; but no one in Chaudiere had ever worn a gla.s.s in his eye like that. Also, no one in Chaudiere had ever looked quite like ”M'sieu'”--for so it was that, after the first few days (a real tribute to his importance and sign of the interest he created) Charley came to be called ”M'sieu',” and the Mallard was at last entirely dropped.

Presently people came and stood at the tailor's door and talked, or listened to Louis Trudel and M'sieu' talking. And it came to be noised abroad that the stranger talked as well as the Cure and better than the Notary. By-and-by they a.s.sociated his eye-gla.s.s with his talent, so that it seemed, as it were, to be the cause of it. Yet their talk was ever of simple subjects, of everyday life about them, now and then of politics, occasionally of the events of the world filtered to them through vast tracts of country. There was one subject which, however, was barred; perhaps because there was knowledge abroad that M'sieu' was not a Catholic, perhaps because Charley himself adroitly changed the conversation when it veered that way.

Though the parish had not quite made up its mind about him, there were a number of things in his favour. In the first place, the Cure seemed satisfied; secondly, he minded his own business. Also, he was working for Louis Trudel for nothing. These things Jo Portugais diligently impressed on the minds of all who would listen.

From above the frosted part of the windows of the post-office, in the corner where she sorted letters, Rosalie could look over at the tailor's shop at an angle; could sometimes even see M'sieu' standing at the long table with a piece of chalk, a pair of shears, or a measure. She watched the tailor-shop herself, but it annoyed her when she saw any one else do so. She resented--she was a woman and loved monopoly--all inquiry regarding M'sieu', so frequently addressed to her.

One afternoon, as Charley came out, on his way to the house on Vadrome Mountain, she happened to be outside. He saw her, paused, lifted his fur cap, and crossed the street to her.

”Have you, perhaps, paper, pens, and ink for sale, Mademoiselle?”

”Yes, oh yes; come in, Monsieur Mallard.”

”Ah, it is nice of you to remember me,” he answered. ”I see you every day--often,” she answered.

”Of course, we are neighbours,” he responded. ”The man--the horse-trainer--is quite well again?”

”He has gone home almost well,” she answered. She placed pens, paper, and ink before him. ”Will these do?”

”Perfectly,” he answered mechanically, and laid a few pens and a bottle of ink beside the paper.

”You were very brave that day,” he said--they had not talked together since, though seeing each other so often.

”Oh, no; I knew he would make friends with me--the hound.”

”Of course,” he rejoined.

”We should show animals that we trust them,” she said, in some confusion, for being near him made her heart throb painfully.

He did not answer. Presently his eye glanced at the paper again, and was arrested. He ran his fingers over it, and a curious look flashed across his face. He held the paper up to the light quickly, and looked through it. It was thin, half-foreign paper, without lines, and there was a water-mark in it-large, shadowy, filmy--Kathleen.

It was paper made in the mills which had belonged to Kathleen's uncle.

This water-mark was made to celebrate their marriage-day. Only for one year had this paper been made, and then the trade in it was stopped. It had gone its ways down the channels of commerce, and here it was in his hand, a reminder, not only of the old life, but, as it were, the parchment for the new. There it was, a piece of plain good paper, ready for pen and ink and his letter to the Cure's brother in Paris--the only letter he would ever write, ever again until he died, so he told himself; but hold it up to the light and there was the name over which his letter must be written--Kathleen, invisible but permanent, obscured, but brought to life by the raising of a hand.

The girl caught the flash of feeling in his face, saw him holding the paper up to the light, and then, with an abstracted air, calmly lay it down.

<script>