The master went down to Marietta for a visit. Jeanne seemed like a pendulum swinging this way and that. She was lonely and miserable. One day the Church seemed a refuge, the next she shrank with a sort of terror and longed for spring, as a drowning man longs for everything that promises succor.
One morning Monsieur Loisel, the notary, came in with a grave and solemn mien.
"I have news for thee, Pani and Mam'selle, a great word of sorrow, and it grieves me to be the bearer of it. Yet the good Lord has a right to his own, for I cannot doubt but that Madame Bellestre's intercession has been of some avail. And Monsieur Bellestre was an upright, honorable, kindly man."
"Monsieur Bellestre is dead," said Pani with the shock of a sudden revelation.
Jeanne stood motionless. Then he could never come back! And, oh, what if Monsieur St. Armand never came back!
"Yes. Heaven rest his soul, say I, and so does the good Father Rameau. For his gift to the Church seems an act of faith."
"And Jeanne?" inquired the woman tremblingly.
"It is about the child I have come to talk. Monsieur Bellestre has made some provision for her, queerly worded, too."
"Oh, he does not take her away from me!" cried the foster mother in anguish.
"No. He had some strange notions not in accord with the Church, we all know, that liberty to follow one's opinion is a good thing. It is not always so in worldly affairs even, but of late years it has come largely in vogue in religious matters. And here is the part of his will that pertains to her. You would not understand the preamble, so I will tell it in plain words. To you, Pani, is given the house and a sum of money each year. To the child is left a yearly portion until she is sixteen, then, if she becomes a Catholic and chooses the lot of a sister, it ceases. Otherwise it is continued until she is married, when she is given a sum for a dowry. And at your death your income reverts to the Bellestre estate."