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Page 28
"Louise," said Peter, "wilt thou forgive me?"
She looked up perplexed, only half believing what she heard.
"I know everything. I have seen Jacques. I was harsh to thee, mon
enfant."
"I meant no harm," said Louise. "I begged him not to come. I knew thou
wouldest be angered."
"I am not angered. He is thy husband."
She glanced up with an irrepressible start of eagerness.
"Thou meanest--" Her very desire seemed to take away her speech.
Peter laid his hand on her wrist, as gently as a woman.
"Louise," he said, "thou lovest him?"
She gazed at him in silence; the piercing question in her eyes her only
answer.
"Thou shalt go with him," he said. "I only came to say goodbye."
He went to the door: then stood and looked back, with a world of
yearning and tenderness in his face. He stretched out his arms. "Kiss
me, Louise," he said.
She rose, still half frightened, and kissed him as she was told.
He held her tightly in his arms for a minute, then put her silently from
him, and turned away.
Peter was not seen in those parts again. It was understood that he and
his wife had emigrated to New Zealand, and the cottage was sold, and the
furniture and things dispersed.
In a fishing village on the coast of Brittany, there appeared, not long
afterwards, a tall Englishman, speaking the Channel Island patois, who
settled down to make a home among the Breton folk, adopting their ways
and language, and eking out, like them, a livelihood by hard toil early
and late among the rocks and sand-banks, or by long months of fishing on
the high seas; a man on whom the simple-minded villagers looked with a
certain respect, mingled with awe, as on one who seemed to them marked
out by heaven for some special fate; who lived alone in his cottage,
attending to his own wants, no woman being ever allowed to enter it; and
about whose past nothing was known, and no one dared to ask.
[Illustration;]
TABITHA'S AUNT.
From the very hour that Tabitha set foot in my house, I conceived a
dislike for her Aunt. In the first place I did not see why she should
have an Aunt. Tabitha was going to belong to me: and why an old, invalid
lady, whose sons were scattered over the face of the earth, and who had
never had a daughter of her own: who had been clever enough to discover
a distant relationship to Tabitha, and had promptly matured a plan by
which Tabitha was to remain always with her; to take the vacant chair
opposite and pour out tea, and be coddled and kissed and looked
after--why she might not have Tabitha herself for her whole and sole
property, I could not understand. But this Aunt was always turning up:
not visibly, I mean, but in conversation. I could never say which way I
liked Tabitha's veil to be fastened but I was told Aunt Rennie's opinion
on the matter--(Tabitha always absurdly shortened her Aunt's surname,
which was Rensworth). I never could mention a book I liked but Aunt
Rennie had either read it or not read it. It did not matter which to me,
the least. But the climax came when Aunt Rennie sent Tabitha a bicycle.
Now I know that young women bicycle nowadays; but that is no reason why
Tabitha should. I always turn away my eyes when I see a young girl pass
the window on one of those ugly, muddy, dangerous machines, with her
knees working like pumps, her skirt I don't know where, and an
expression of self-satisfied determination on her face. I don't think I
am old-fashioned, but I am sure my own dear little girl, if she had ever
come to me, would not have bicycled; and though I had no wish to put any
unfair restraint on Tabitha, still I did not want her to have a bicycle.
And that this Aunt Rennie, as Tabitha would call her, without a word of
warning, should send her one of those hideous things, as if it was _her_
business to arrange for Tabitha's exercise--I do think it was rather
uncalled for.
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