Part 27 (2/2)

”You judge correctly. Benoit does not wish her to marry as she desires.

And though he wishes her to unite herself to a brute compared with her cavalier, yet the latter is himself an individual of no consequence, and she has been well advised to relinquish him.”

”Who is it advises that?”

”Her friends, who see in her a more lovely destiny. The dear child will make perhaps a Saint. You do not know the expiations and indulgences she has earned these several years by prayers and devotions, her pure nature, her admirable conduct. She is not for the world, but for G.o.d.”

”What did Josepthe herself think?”

That which Madame had said of her nature was correct enough. She was a delight to the sisters in their sad, austere lives. ”She is like an angel, and has the movements of one,” they said. Very unlike to, for instance, the daughters Jalbert, those bold and idle girls, whose steady occupation was tom-boying scandalously with chance young men, and jeering impudent jeers at everybody.

Her haunts were in removed and shady nooks, such as the little dell behind the log cabin of the Le Bruns. There, one hot afternoon he found her sitting under the shade of the windmill, dressed as usual in neat black, and as usual lately, pale. The little ones ran, sat and played around her; Henri, Rudolphe and Elisa in the pride of their enterprise tugging the long beam by which horse or man in the preceding century had turned the conical cap of the mill; their efforts cracking and shaking the crazy roof, but availing nothing except to disturb a crow or two near by, among the white birches through whose cl.u.s.ters gleamed the River in the sun.

What brought Josephte to the Le Brun dell?

_Et quoi!_ She was weeping.

Those little children saw not her silent tears. Chrysler beheld them--crystalline drops on pale, soft cheek, emblems of pure heart and secret sorrow; but she checked them when he drew near and sat up composed.

”Mademoiselle,” he said, ”What is it troubles thee so profoundly? Tell me; I am an old man and thy friend.”

”Monsieur, Monsieur, I ask your pardon,”--she broke again into tears.

Fortunately, all the children were running off among the trees.--”My sin is great:”

”And what is the offence, my child?”

Josephte was silent, and the blood rushed over her face.

”I mean thee no ill, Mlle. Josephte. Perhaps I can a.s.sist or advise thee.”

”They have promised me to the good G.o.d: alas! and my heart thinks of a mortal! I never could be like the others.--I cannot forget,” and she broke completely down, sobbing again and again. In a little while he spoke, hoping to soothe her.

”This may be no more than natural, my dear.”

”The natural heart, monsieur, is full of sin; and that is ten times worse for a woman. O if I could love G.o.d alone!” and again she sobbed convulsively.

Trained as the highest type of Catholic mind, her imagination habitually pictured two worlds--the one of exquisite spiritual light and purity, and spotless with the presence of saints, of the Virgin; of G.o.d the Father: the other the world of mankind,--the ”world,” shadowed with wickedness and mourning, and whose pleasure is itself a sin. She yearned towards the first; she sank back with acute sensitiveness from the second. For her, to enter a church was to be overpowered with the communion of spirits; to think a single thought leading away from G.o.d was to commit a crime. To know such a girl is to respect for ever the nun's orders in which natures like hers take refuge.

”Josephte, ma'amselle,” said Chrysler very quietly and pleadingly, ”do you not love Francois?”

The blood swept over her forehead again, and changed it once more from white to red. The tears stopped in her eyes and she regarded him for a moment with an intense look.

”Francois loves you,” he proceeded.

He went on: ”Where is the difficulty? Is it not very cruel to deny Francois your love? Who made you promise that?”

”O sir, they willed that I should marry another.”

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