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 parishioners 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 worship 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 documents 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."

Agapit sat down before the table bestrewn with papers, while Vesper went swiftly over the road until he reached the picnic ground of the day before, now restored to its former quietness as a grazing place for cows. Of all the cheerful show there was left only the big merry-go-round, that was being packed in an enormous wagon drawn by four pairs of oxen.

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Vesper, springing off his wheel, and addressing the Acadiens at work.

"We take it to a parish farther down the Bay, where there is to be yet another picnic," said one of them.

"How much did they make yesterday?" pursued Vesper.

"Six hundred dollars, and only four hundred the day before, and three the first, for you remember those days were partly rainy."

"And some people say that you Acadiens are poor."

The man grinned. "There were many people here, many things. This wooden darling," and he pointed to the dismembered merry-go-round, "earned one dollar and twenty cents every five minutes. We need much for our churches," and he jerked his thumb towards the red cathedral. "The plaster falls, it must be restored. Do you go far, sir?"

Vesper mentioned his destination.

All the Acadiens on the Bay knew him and took a friendly interest in his movements, and the man advised him to take in the Cave of the Bears, that was also a show-place for strangers. "It is three miles farther, where there is a bite in the shore, and the bluff is high. You will know it by two yellow houses, like twins. Descend there, and you will see a troop of ugly bears quite still about a cave. The Indians of this coast say that their great man, Glooscap, in days before the French came, once sat in the cave to rest. Some hungry bears came to eat him, but he stretched out a pine-tree that he carried and they were turned to stone."

Vesper thanked him, and went on. When he reached the sudden and picturesque cove in the Bay, his attention was caught, not so much by its beauty, as by the presence of the inn pony, who neighed a joyful welcome, and impatiently jerked back and forth the road-cart to which he was attached.

Vesper glanced sharply at the yellow houses. Perhaps Rose was making a call in one of them. Then he stroked the pony, who playfully nipped his coat sleeve, and, after propping his wheel against a stump, ran nimbly down a grassy road, where a goat was soberly feeding among lobster-traps and drawn-up boats.

He crossed the strip of sand in the semicircular inlet, and there before him were the bears,—ugly brown rocks with coats of slippery seaweed, their grinning heads turned towards the mouth of a black cavern in the lower part of the bluff, their staring eye-sockets fixed on the dainty woman's figure inside, as if they would fain devour her.

Rose sat with her face to the sea, her head against the damp rock wall,—her whole attitude one of abandonment and mournful despair.

Vesper began to hurry towards her, but, catching sight of Narcisse, he stopped.

The child, with a face convulsed and tear-stained, was angrily seizing stones from the beach to fling them against the most lifelike bear of all,—a grotesque, hideous creature, that appeared to be shouldering his way from the water in order to plunge into the cave.

"Dost thou mock me?" exclaimed Narcisse, furiously. "I will strike thee yet again, thou hateful thing. Thou shalt not come on shore to eat my mother and the Englishman," and he dashed a yet larger stone against it.

"Narcisse," said Vesper.

The child turned quickly. Then his trouble was forgotten, and stumbling and slipping over the seaweed, but at last attaining his goal, he flung his small unhappy self against Vesper's breast. "I love you, I love you,—gros comme la grange à Pinot" (as much as Pinot's barn),—"yet my mother carried me away. Take me with you, Mr. Englishman. Narcisse is very sick without you."

In maternal alarm Rose sprang up at her child's first shriek. Then she sank back, pale and confused, for Vesper's eye was upon her, although apparently he was engaged only in fondling the little curly head, and in allowing the child to stroke his face and dive into his pockets, to pull out his watch, and indulge in the fond and foolish familiarities permitted to a child by a loving father.

"Go to her, Narcisse," said Vesper, presently, and the small boy ran into the cave. "My mother, my mother!" he cried, in an ecstasy; and he wagged his curly head as if he would shake it from his body. "The Englishman returns to you and to me,—he will stay away only a short time. Come, get up, get up. Let us go back to the inn. I am to go no more to my grandmother. Is it not so?" and he anxiously gazed at Vesper, who was slowly approaching.

Vesper did not speak, neither did Rose. What was the matter with these grown people that they stared so stupidly at each other?

"Have you a headache, Mr. Englishman?" he asked, with abrupt childish anxiety, as he noticed a sudden and unusual wave of color sweeping over his friend's face. "And you, my mother,—why do you hang your head? Give only the Englishman your hand and he will lift you from the rock. He is strong, very strong,—he carries me over the rough places."

"Will you give me your hand, Rose?"

She started back, with a heart-broken gesture.

"But you are imbecile, my darling mother!" cried Narcisse, throwing himself on her in terror. "The Englishman will become angry,—he will leave us. Give him your hand, and let us go from this place," and, resolutely seizing her fluttering fingers in his own soft ones, he directed them to Vesper's strong, true clasp.

"Go stone the bears again, Narcisse," said the young man, with a strange quiver in his voice. "I will talk to your mother about going back to the inn. See, she is not well;" for Rose had bowed her weary head on her arm.

"Yes, talk to her," said the child, "that is good, and, above all, do not let her hand go. She runs from me sometimes, the little naughty mother," and, with affected roguishness that, however, concealed a certain anxiety, he put his head on one side, and stared affectionately at her as he left the cave.

He had gone some distance, and Vesper had already whispered a few words in Rose's ear, when he returned and stared again at them. "Will you tell me only one little story, Mr. Englishman?"

"About what, you small bother?"

"About bears, big brown bears, not gentle trees."

"There was once a sick bear," said the young man, "and he went all about the world, but could not get well until he found a quiet spot, where a gentle lady cured him."

"And then—"

"The lady had a cub," said Vesper, suddenly catching him in his arms and taking him out to the strip of sand, "a fascinating cub that the bear—I mean the man—adored."

Narcisse laughed gleefully, snatched Vesper's cap and set off with it, fell into a pool of water and was rescued, and set to the task of taking off his shoes and stockings and drying them in the sun, while Vesper went back to Rose, who still sat like a person in acute distress of body and mind.

"I was sudden,—I startled you," he murmured.

She made a dissenting gesture, but did not speak.

"Will you look at me, Rose?" he said, softly; "just once."

"But I am afraid," fluttered from her pale lips. "When I gaze into your eyes it is hard—"

He stood over her in such quiet, breathless sympathy that presently she looked up, thinking he was gone.

His glance caught and held hers. She got up, allowed him to take her hands and press them to his lips, and to place on her head the hat that had fallen to the ground.

"I will say nothing more now," he murmured, "you are shocked and upset. We had better go home."

"Come and be presented to Mrs. Nimmo," suddenly said a saucy, laughing voice.

Rose started nervously. Her sister Perside had caught sight of them,—teasing, yet considerate Perside, since she had bestowed only one glance on the lovers, and had then gone sauntering past the mouth of the cave, out to the wide array of black rocks beyond them. She carried a hooked stick over her shoulder, and a tin pail in her hand, and sometimes she looked back at a second girl, similarly equipped, who was running down the grassy road after her.

Nothing could have made Rose more quickly recover herself. "It is not the time of perigee,—you will find nothing," she called after Perside; then she added to Vesper, in a low, shy voice, "She seeks lobsters. She danced so much at the picnic that she was too tired to go home, and had to stay here with cousins."

"Times and seasons do not matter for some things," returned Perside, gaily, over her shoulder; "one has the fun."

Narcisse stopped digging his bare toes in the sand and shrieked, delightedly, "Aunt Perside, aunt Perside, do you know the Englishman returns to my mother and me? He will never leave us, and I am not to go to my grandmother." Then, fearful that his assertions had been too strong, he averted his gaze from the two approaching people, and fixed it on the blazing sun.

"Will you promise not to make a scene when I leave to-morrow?" said Vesper.

Narcisse blinked at him, his eyes full of spots and wheels and revolving lights. He was silly with joy, and gurgled deep down in his little throat. "Let me kiss your hand, as you kissed my mother's. It is a pretty sight."

"Will you be a good boy when I leave to-morrow," said Vesper again.

"But why should I cry if you return?" cried the child, excitedly flinging a handful of sand at his boots. "Narcisse will never again be bad," and rolling over and over, and kicking his pink heels in glee, he forced Vesper and Rose to retire to a respectful distance.

They stood watching him for some time, and, as they watched, Rose's tortured face grew calm, and a spark of the divine passion animating her lover's face came into her deep blue eyes. She had no right to break the tender, sensitive little heart given so strangely to this stranger. She would forget Agapit and his warnings; she would forget the proud women of her race, who would not wed a stranger, and one of another creed; she would also forget the nervous, jealous mother who would keep her son from all women.

"You have asked me for myself," she said, impulsively stretching out her hands to him, "for myself and my child. We are yours."

Vesper bent down, and pressed her cool fingers against his burning cheeks. She smiled at him, even laughed gleefully, and passed her hands over his head in a playful caress; then, with her former expression of exaltation and virginal modesty and shyness, she ran up the grassy road, and paused at the top to look back at him, as he toiled up with Narcisse.

She was vivacious and merry now,—he had never seen her just so before. In an instant,—a breath,—with her surrender to him, she had seemed to drop her load of care, that usually made her youthful face so grave and sweet beyond her years. He would like to see her cheerful and laughing—thoughtless even; and murmuring endearing epithets under his breath, he assisted her into the cart, placed the reins in her hands, tucked Narcisse in by her side, and, surreptitiously lifting a fold of her dress to his face, murmured, "Au revoir, my sweet saint."

Then, stroking his mustache to conceal from the yellow houses his proud smile of ownership, he watched the upright pose of the light head, and the contorted appearance of the dark one that was twisted over a little shoulder as long as the cart was in sight.

He forgot all about the church, and, going back to the beach, he lay for a long time sunning himself on the sand, and plunged in a delicious reverie. Then, mounting his wheel, he returned to the inn.

Agapit was running excitedly to and fro on the veranda. "Come, make haste," he cried, as he caught sight of him in the distance. "Extremely strange things have happened—Let me assist you with that wheel,—a malediction on it, these bicycles go always where one does not expect. There is news of the Fiery Frenchman. I found something, also Father La Croix."

"This is interesting," said Vesper, good-naturedly, as he folded his arms, and lounged against one of the veranda posts.

"I was delving among my uncle's papers. I had precipitately come on the name of LeNoir,—Etex, the son of Raphael, who was a wealthy bourgeois of Calais, and emigrated to Grand Pré. He was dead when the expulsion came, and of his two sons one, Gabriel LeNoir, escaped up the St. John River, and that Gabriel was my ancestor, and that of Rose; therefore, most astonishingly to me, we are related to this family whom you have sought," and Agapit wound up with a flourish of his hands and his heels.

"I am glad of this," said Vesper, in a deeply gratified voice.

"But more remains. I was shouting over my discovery, when Father La Croix came. I ran, I descended,—the good man presented his compliments to madame and you. Several of his people went to him this morning. They had questioned the old ones. He wrote what they said, and here it is. See—the son of the murdered Etex was Samson. His mother landed in Philadelphia. In griping poverty the boy grew up. He went to Boston. He joined the Acadiens who marched the five hundred miles through the woods to Acadie. He arrived at the Baie Chaleur, where he married a Comeau. He had many children, but his eldest, Jean, is he in whom you will interest yourself, as in the direct line."

"And what of Jean?" asked Vesper, when Agapit stopped to catch his breath.

Agapit pointed to the Bay. "He lies over Digby Neck, in the Bay of Fundy, but his only child is on this Bay."

"A boy or a girl?"

"A devil," cried Agapit, in a burst of grief, "a little devil."

CHAPTER XVI.
FOR THE HONOR OF THEIR RACE.

"Why is the descendant of the Fiery Frenchman a devil?" asked Vesper.

"Because she has no heart. They have taken from her her race, her religion. Her mother, who had some Indian blood, was also wild. She would not sweep her kitchen floor. She went to sea with her husband, and when she was drowned with him, her sister, who is also gay, took the child."

"What do you mean by gay?"

"I mean like hawks. They go here and there,—they love the woods. They do not keep neat houses, and yet they are full of strange ambitions. They change their names. They are not so much like the English as we are, yet they pretend to have no French blood. Sometimes I visit them, for the uncle of the child—Claude à Sucre—is worthy, but his wife I detestate. She has no bones of purpose; she is like a flabby sunfish."

"Where do they live?"

"Up the Bay,—near Bleury."

"And do you think there is nothing I can do for this little renegade?"

"Nothing?" cried Agapit. "You can do everything. It is the opportunity of your life. You so wise, so generous, so understanding the Acadiens. You have in your power to make born again the whole family through the child. They are superstitious. They will respect the claim of the dead. Come to the garden to talk, for there are strangers approaching."

Vesper shivered. He was not altogether happy over the discovery of the lost link connecting him with the far-back tragedy in which his great-grandfather had been involved. However, he suppressed all signs of emotion, and, following Agapit to the lawn, he walked to and fro, listening attentively to the explanations and information showered upon him. When Rose came to the door to ring the supper-bell, both young men paused. She thought they had been speaking of her, and blushed divinely.

Agapit, with an alarmed expression, turned to his companion, who smiled quietly, and was just about to address him, when a lad came running up to them.

"Agapit, come quickly,—old miser Lefroy is dying, and would make his will. He calls for thee."

"Return,—say that I will come," exclaimed Agapit, waving his hand; then he looked at Vesper. "One word only, why does Rose look so strangely?"

"Rose has promised to be my wife."

Agapit groaned, flung himself away a few steps, then came back. "Say no more to her till you see me. How could you—and yet you do her honor. I cannot blame you," and with a farewell glance, in which there was a curious blending of despair and gratified pride, he ran after the boy.

Vesper went up-stairs to his mother, who announced herself no better, and begged only that she might not be disturbed. He accordingly descended to the dining-room and took his place at the table.

Rose was quietly moving to and fro with a heightened color. She was glad that Agapit was away,—it was more agreeable to her to have only one lord and master present; yet, sensitively alive to the idiosyncrasies of this new one, she feared that he was disapproving of her unusual number of guests.

He, however, nobly suppressed his disapproval, and even talked pleasantly of recent political happenings in his own country with some travelling agents who happened to be some of his own fellow citizens.

"Ah, it is a wonderful thing, this love," she said to herself, as she went to the kitchen for a fresh supply of coffee; "it makes one more anxious to please, and to think less of oneself. Mr. Nimmo wishes to aid me,—and yet, though he is so kind, he slightly wrinkles his beautiful eyebrows when I place dishes on the table. He does not like me to serve. He would have me sit by him; some day I shall do so;" and, overcome by the confused bliss of the thought, she retired behind the pantry door, where the curious Célina found her with her face buried in her hands, and in quick, feminine intuition at once guessed her secret.

There were many dishes to wash after supper, and Vesper, who was keeping an eye on the kitchen, inwardly applauded Célina, who, instead of running to the door as she usually did to exchange pleasantries with waiting friends and admirers, accomplished her tasks with surprising celerity. In the brief space of three-quarters of an hour she was ready to go out, and after donning a fresh blouse and a clean apron, and coquettishly tying a handkerchief on her head, she went to the lawn, where she would play croquet and gossip with her friends until the stars came out.

Vesper left the smokers on the veranda and the chattering women in the parlor, and sauntered through the quiet dining-room and kitchen. Rose was nowhere in sight, but her pet kitten, that followed her from morning till night, was mewing at the door of a small room used as a laundry.

Vesper cautiously looked in. The supple young back of his sweetheart was bent over a wash-tub. "Rose," he exclaimed, "what are you doing?"

She turned a blushing face over her shoulder. "Only a little washing—a very little. The washerwoman forgot."

Vesper walked around the tub.

"It was such a pleasure," she stammered. "I did not know that you would wish to talk to me till perhaps later on."

Her slender hands gripped a white garment affectionately, and partly lifted it from the soap-suds. Vesper, peering in the tub, discovered that it was one of the white jerseys that he wore bicycling, and, gently taking it from her, he dropped it out of sight in the foam.

"But it is of wool,—it will shrink," she said, anxiously.

He laughed, dried her white arms on his handkerchief, and begged her to sit down on a bench beside him.

She shyly drew back and, pulling down her sleeves, seated herself on a stool opposite.

"Rose," he said, seriously, "do you know how to flirt?"

Her beautiful lips parted, and she laughed in a gleeful, wholehearted way that reminded him of Narcisse. "I think that it would be possible to learn," she said, demurely.

Vesper did not offer to teach her. He fell into an intoxicated silence, and sat musing on this, the purest and sweetest passion of his life. What had she done—this simple Acadien woman—to fill his heart with such profound happiness? A light from the window behind her shone around her flaxen head, and reminded him of the luminous halos surrounding the heads of her favorite saints. Since the ecstatic dreams of boyhood he had experienced nothing like this,—and yet this dream was more extended, more spiritual and less earthly than those, for infinite worlds of happiness now unfolded themselves to his vision, and endless possibilities and responsibilities stretched out before him. This woman's life would be given fearlessly into his hands, and also the life of her child. He, Vesper Nimmo, almost a broken link in humanity's chain, would become once more a part in the glorious whole.

Rose, enraptured with this intellectual love-making, sat watching every varying emotion playing over her lover's face. How different he was from Charlitte,—ah, poor Charlitte!—and she shuddered. He was so rough, so careless. He had been like a good-natured bear that wished a plaything. He had not loved her as gently, as tenderly as this man did.

"Rose," asked Vesper, suddenly, "what is the matter with Agapit?"

"I do not know," she said, and her face grew troubled. "Perhaps he is angry that I have told a story, for I said I would not marry."

"Why should he not wish you to marry?"

Again she said that she did not know.

"Will you marry me in six weeks?"

"I will marry when you wish," she replied, with dignity, "yet I beg you to think well of it. My little boy is in his bed, and when I no longer see him, I doubt. There are so few things that I know. If I go to your dear country, that you love so much, you may drop your head in shame,—notwithstanding what you have said, I give you up if you wish."

"Womanlike, you must inject a drop of bitterness into the only full cup of happiness ever lifted to your lips. Let us suppose, however, that you are right. My people are certainly not as your people. Shall we part now,—shall I go away to-morrow, and never see you again?"

Rose stared blindly at him.

"Are you willing for me to go?" he asked, quietly.

His motive in suggesting the parting was the not unworthy one of a lover who longs for an open expression of affection from one dear to him, yet he was shocked at the signs of Rose's suppressed passion and inarticulate terror. She did not start from her seat, she did not throw herself in his inviting arms, and beg him to stay with her. No; the terrified blue eyes were lowered meekly to the floor, and, in scarcely audible accents, she murmured, "What seems right to you must be done."

"Rose,—I shall never leave you."

"I feel that I have reached up to heaven, and plucked out a very bright star," she stammered, with white lips, "and yet here it is," and trying to conceal her agony, she opened her clenched and quivering hand, as if to restore something to him.

He went down on his knees before her. "You are a princess among your people, Rose. Keep the star,—it is but a poor ornament for you," and seizing her suffering hands, he clasped them to his breast. "Listen, till I tell you my reasons for not leaving the woman who has given me my life and inspired me with hope for the future."

Rose listened, and grew pale at his eloquent words, and still more eloquent pauses.

After some time, a gentle, melancholy smile came creeping to her face; a smile that seemed to reflect past suffering rather than present joy. "It is like pain," she said, and she timidly laid a finger on his dark head, "this great joy. I have had so many terrors,—I have loved you so long, I find, and I thought you would die."

Vesper felt that his veins had been filled with some glowing elixir of earthly and heavenly delight. How adorable she was,—how unique, with her modesty, her shyness, her restrained eagerness. Surely he had found the one peerless woman in the world.

"Talk to me more about yourself and your feelings," he entreated.

"I have longed to tell you," she murmured, "that you have taught me what it is,—this love; and also that one does not make it, for it is life or death, and therefore can only come from the Lord. When you speak, your words are so agreeable that they are like rain on dusty ground. I feel that you are quite admirable," and, interrupting herself, she bent over to gently kiss his cheek as he still knelt before her.

"Continue, Rose," he said, shutting his eyes in an ecstasy.

"I speak freely," she said, "because I feel that I can trust you without fear, and always, always love and serve you till you are quite, quite old. I also understand you. Formerly I did not. You say that I am like a princess. Ah, not so much as you. You are altogether like a prince. You had the air of being contented; I did not know your thoughts. Now I can look into your beautiful white soul. You hide nothing from me. No, do not put your face down. You are a very, very good man. I do not think that there can be any one so good."

Vesper looked up, and laid a finger across the sweet, praising mouth.

"Let us talk of your mother," said Rose. "Since I love you, I love her more; but she does not like me equally."

"But she will, my ingenuous darling. I have talked to her twice. She is quite reconciled, but it will take time for her to act a mother's part. You will have patience?"

Rose wrinkled her delicate brows. "I put myself in her place,—ah, how hard for her! Let me fancy you my son. How could I give you up? And yet it would be wrong for her to take you from one who can make you more happy; is it not so?"

Vesper sprang to his feet. "Yes, Rose; it is you and I against the world,—one heart, one soul; it is wonderful, and a great mystery," and clasping his hands behind him, he walked to and fro along the narrow room.

Rose, with a transfigured face, watched him, and hung on every word falling from his lips, as he spoke of his plans for the future, his disappointed hopes and broken aspirations of the past. It did not occur to either of them, so absorbed were they with each other, to glance at the small window overlooking the dooryard, where an eager face came and went at intervals.

Sometimes the face was angry; sometimes sorrowful. Sometimes a clenched fist was raised between it and the glass as if at an imaginary enemy. The unfortunate watcher, in great perplexity of mind, was going through every gesture in the pantomime of distress.

The lovers, unmindful of him, continued their conversation, and the suffering Agapit continued to suffer.

Vesper talked and walked on, occasionally stopping to listen to a remark from Rose, or to bend over her in an adoring, respectful attitude while he bestowed a caress or received a shy and affectionate one from her.

"It is sinful,—I should interrupt," groaned Agapit, "yet it would be cruel. They are in paradise. Ah, dear blessed Virgin,—mother of suffering hearts,—have pity on them, for they are both noble, both good;" and he dashed his hand across his eyes to hide the sight of the beautiful head held as tenderly between the hands of the handsome stranger as if it were indeed a fragile, full-blown rose.

"They take leave," he muttered; "I will look no more,—it is a sacrilege," and he rushed into the house by another door.

The croquet players called to him from the lawn. He could hear the click of the balls and the merry voices as he passed, but he paid no heed to them. Only in the dining-room did he stay his hasty steps. There, in front of the picture of Rose's husband, he paused with uplifted arm.

"Scoundrel!" he muttered, furiously; then striking his fist through the glass, he shattered the portrait, from the small twinkling eyes to its good-natured, sensuous mouth.

CHAPTER XVII.
THE SUBLIMEST THING IN THE WORLD.

Theodore H. Rand.

Mrs. Nimmo was better the next morning, and, rising betimes, gave her son an early audience in her room.

"You need not tell me anything," she said, with a searching glance at him. "It is all arranged between you and the Acadien woman. I know,—you cannot stave off these things. I will be good, Vesper, only give me time,—give me time, and let us have no explanations. You can tell her that you have not spoken to me, and she will not expect me to gush."

Her voice died away in a pitiful quaver, and Vesper quietly, but with intense affection, kissed the cold cheek she offered him.

"Go away," she said, pushing him from her, "or I shall break down, and I want my strength for the journey."

Vesper went down-stairs, his eyes running before him for the sweet presence of Rose. She was not in the dining-room, and with suppressed disappointment he looked curiously at Célina, who was red-eyed and doleful, and requested her to take his mother's breakfast up-stairs. Then, with a disagreeable premonition of trouble, he turned his attention to Agapit, whose face had turned a sickly yellow and who was toying abstractedly with his food. He appeared to be ill, and, refusing to talk, waited silently for Vesper to finish his breakfast.

"Will you come to the smoking-room?" he then said; and being answered by a silent nod, he preceded Vesper to that room and carefully closed the door.

"Now give me your hand," he said, tragically, "for I am going to make you angry, and perhaps you will never again clasp mine in friendship."

"Get out," said Vesper, peevishly. "I detest melodrama,—and say quickly what you have to say. We have only an hour before the train leaves."

"My speech can be made in a short time," said Agapit, solemnly. "Your farewell of Sleeping Water to-day must be eternal."

"Don't be a fool, Agapit, but go look for a rope for my mother's trunk; she has lost the straps."

"If I found a rope it would be to hang myself," said Agapit, desperately. "Never was I so unhappy, never, never."

"What is wrong with you?"

"I am desolated over your engagement to my cousin. We thank you for the honor, but we decline it."

"Indeed! as the engagement does not include you, I must own that I will take my dismissal only from your cousin."

"Look at me,—do I seem like one in play? God knows I do not wish to torment you. All night I walked my floor, and Rose,—unhappy Rose! I shudder when I think how she passed the black hours after my cruel revealings."

"What have you said to Rose?" asked Vesper, in a fury. "You forget that she now belongs to me."

"She belongs to no one but our Lord," said Agapit, in an agony. "You cannot have her, though the thought makes my heart bleed for you."

Vesper's face flushed. "If you will let it stop bleeding long enough to be coherent, I shall be obliged to you."

"Oh, do not be angry with me,—let me tell you now that I love you for your kindness to my people. You came among us,—you, an Englishman. You did not despise us. You offer my cousin your hand, and it breaks our hearts to refuse it, but she cannot marry you. She sends you that message,—'You must go away and forget me. Marry another woman if you so care. I must give you up.' These are her words as she stood pale and cold."

Vesper seated himself on the edge of the big table in the centre of the room. Very deliberately he took out his watch and laid it beside him. So intense was the stillness of the room, so nervously sensitive and unstrung was Agapit by his night's vigil, that he started at the rattling of the chain on the polished surface.

"I give you five minutes," said Vesper, "to explain your attitude towards your cousin, on the subject of her marriage. As I understand the matter, you were an orphan brought up by her father. Of late years you arrogate the place of a brother. Your decisions are supreme. You announce now that she is not to marry. You have some little knowledge of me. Do you fancy that I will be put off by any of your trumpery fancies?"

"No, no," said Agapit, wildly. "I know you better,—you have a will of steel. But can you not trust me? I say an impediment exists. It is like a mountain. You cannot get over it, you cannot get around it; it would pain you to know, and I cannot tell it. Go quietly away therefore."

Vesper was excessively angry. With his love for Rose had grown a certain jealousy of Agapit, whose influence over her had been unbounded. Yet he controlled himself, and said, coldly, "There are other ways of getting past a mountain."

"By flying?" said Agapit, eagerly.

"No,—tunnelling. Tell me now how long this obstacle has existed?"

"It would be more agreeable to me not to answer questions."

"I daresay, but I shall stay here until you do."

"Then, it is one year," said Agapit, reluctantly.

"It has, therefore, not arisen since I came?"

"Oh, no, a thousand times no."

"It is a question of religion?"

"No, it is not," said Agapit, indignantly; "we are not in the Middle Ages."

"It seems to me that we are; does Rose's priest know?"

"Yes, but not through her."

"Through you,—at confession?"

"Yes, but he would die rather than break the seal of confession."

"Of course. Does any one here but you know?"

"Oh, no, no; only myself, and Rose's uncle, and one other."

"It has something to do with her first marriage," said Vesper, sharply. "Did she promise her husband not to marry again?"

Agapit would not answer him.

"You are putting me off with some silly bugbear," said Vesper, contemptuously.

"A bugbear! holy mother of angels, it is a question of the honor of our race. But for that, I would tell you."

"You do not wish her to marry me because I am an American."

"I would be proud to have her marry an American," said Agapit, vehemently.

"I shall not waste more time on you," said Vesper, disdainfully. "Rose will explain."

"You must not go to her," said Agapit, blocking his way. "She is in a strange state. I fear for her reason."

"You do," muttered Vesper, "and you try to keep me from her?"

Agapit stood obstinately pressing his back against the door.

"You want her for yourself," said Vesper, suddenly striking him a smart blow across the face.

The Acadien sprang forward, his burly frame trembled, his hot breath enveloped Vesper's face as he stood angrily regarding him. Then he turned on his heel, and pressed his handkerchief to his bleeding lips.

"I will not strike you," he mumbled, "for you do not understand. I, too, have loved and been unhappy."

The glance that he threw over his shoulder was so humble, so forgiving, that Vesper's heart was touched.

"I ask your pardon, Agapit,—you have worried me out of my senses," and he warmly clasped the hand that the Acadien extended to him.

"Come," said Agapit, with an adorable smile. "Follow me. You have a generous heart. You shall see your Rose."

Agapit knocked softly at his cousin's door, then, on receiving permission, entered with a reverent step.

Vesper had never been in this little white chamber before. One comprehensive glance he bestowed on it, then his eyes came back to Rose, who had, he knew without being told, spent the whole night on her knees before the niche in the wall, where stood a pale statuette of the Virgin.

This was a Rose he did not know, and one whose frozen beauty struck a deadly chill to his heart. He had lost her,—he knew it before she opened her lips. She seemed not older, but younger. The look on her face he had seen on the faces of dead children; the blood had been frightened from her very lips. What was it that had given her this deadly shock? He was more than ever determined to know, and, subduing every emotion but that of stern curiosity, he stood expectant.

"You insisted on an adieu," she murmured, painfully.

"I am coming back in a week," said Vesper, stubbornly.

The hand that held her prayer-book trembled. "You have told him that he must not return?" and she turned to Agapit, and lifted her flaxen eyebrows, that seemed almost dark against the unearthly pallor of her skin.

"Yes," he said, with a gusty sigh. "I have told him, but he does not heed me."

"It is for the honor of our race," she said to Vesper.

"Rose," he said, keenly, "do you think I will give you up?"

Her white lips quivered. "You must go; it is wrong for me even to see you."

Vesper stared at Agapit, and seeing that he was determined not to leave the room, he turned his back squarely on him. "Rose," he said, in a low voice, "Rose."

The saint died in her, the woman awoke. Little by little the color crept back to her face. Her ears, her lips, her cheeks, and brow were suffused with the faint, delicate hue of the flower whose name she bore.

A passionate light sprang into her blue eyes. "Agapit," she murmured, "Agapit," yet her glance did not leave Vesper's face, "can we not tell him?"