Part 99

Farr had been sitting with head against the trunk of the tree. When he had started to rise she requested him to remain seated. Now he stood up so quickly that she gasped. She was plainly still less at ease when he stood and came close to her.

“Wait a moment. You think that I am a very strange sort of man, do you not?”

She was silent.

“You need not answer--it doesn't need answer. You naturally must think that. You met me when I was a vagrant. You have seen me selling ice from a cart-tail. But--I will be very frank, for this is a time which demands frankness--you have seen me in other circumstances which have been a bit more creditable. You do not know who I am or what to make of me. But with all your heart and soul you know that I love you,” he declared, his tones low and tense and thrilling. “That love has needed no words. It has been strange love-making. Wait! This isn't going to be what you think. If I were simply going to say I love you I would have said it to you long ago--I am not a coward--and I had seen the one mate of all the world; I knew it when I saw you in the dust of the long highway. And after you went on I picked a rose beside the way, and the ashes of that rose are in my pocket now. I called you the little sister of the rose and plodded along after you, playing with a dream. And I threw the rose away after I saw you in the woods with your lover--and understood. But I went back and hunted on my knees for your sister. I didn't intend to say any of this to you. For it is of no use.”

“No; I am promised to Richard Dodd,” she sobbed.

“If that was all that stood between us I'd reach now and take you in my arms,” he said, with bitterness.

“It is more than a mere promise--he owns me--it was bargain and sale--it's sacrifice--for--But I must not tell you.” She went to the tree and put her forehead on her crossed arms and wept with a child's pitiful abandon. He came close and put tender hand upon her shoulder.

“Sacrifice, little sister of the rose! Then there is another bond between us! Sacrifice! My God! the curse that is sometimes put upon the innocent!” He put the tip of his forefinger under her chin and lifted her face from her arms. “I haven't any right to tell you that I love you. I must march on. I cannot even explain to you why I cannot take you in my arms and plead for your love.”

Her eyes told him what answer his pleading would win, and he trembled and stepped away from her.

“Since it can never be,” she said, brokenly, “you may as well know that I--that I do--I couldn't help it. I am forward--I am bold--it is shameless--but I never loved anybody before.” She put out both her hands, and he took them.

Old Etienne dragged doggedly at his work, his lantern lighting his toil. The looms clacked behind the dusty windows which splashed their radiance upon the gloom.

“It is a bit strange that now another wonderful but bitter experience should come into my life on this spot where we are standing,” he told her. He spoke quietly, trying to calm her; striving to crowd back his own emotions. “I guess fate picked this spot as the right place for us to say farewell to each other. I stood here one day and saw old Etienne draw a dead woman to the surface of the water, and I found a letter in her breast and I took her key and went and found little Rosemarie.”

She stared at him, her eyes very wide in the darkness.

“And that dead woman--she was the mother of the little girl?”

“Yes, a poor weaver that the mills had broken. And Rosemarie and I sat all night under this tree. It is too long a story for you now. No matter about that, but I--”

“I know about Rosemarie,” she confessed.

“And my heart opened and something new came into it, little sister of the rose. And now on this spot I stand, and all joy and hope and love are dead for me when I give back to you these dear little hands.”

She was still staring at him.

“But I must not--I dare not speak of it,” he proceeded. His grasp grew tense. “See how I am trying to be calm? I will not loose my grip on myself. Our doom was written for us by other hands, dear heart. When it was summer I walked here with Rosemarie and play-mamma. Now it is autumn and--”

“Play-mamma!” she gasped.

“Yes, a dear, good girl who worked hard in the mill and who was very good to our Rosemarie; I was making poor shifts at buying a little girl's clothes, and Zelie Dionne was wise in those matters and was busy with her needle.”

“I hope you been excuse me,” broke in old Etienne. “I overheard the name of Zelie Dionne, but I don't mean to listen. I have some good news for you, M'sieu' Farr, what you don't hear because you ain't been on this place for long time. And it is not good news for you, ma'm'selle, for now you can't get acquaint with very nice Canadian girl. The big beau Jean have come down here from Tadousac and now he own nice farm and they will get marry and be very happy up in the habitant country.”

“Thank God, there's some happiness in this world,” said Farr. “She is a good girl.”

There was almost joy on Kate Kilgour's face when she looked up at Farr.

Her god had been restored to his pedestal.

“Farewell,” he said at the little gate through which she had stepped into the street.

“No,” she cried as she turned and hurried away; “I'll not say it--not now!” And he wondered because there was joy in her tones.

XXXI