“I wish you had been my true father,” Renée subjoined gravely. And strange to say, she pitied Barbe in her secret heart, yet she was glad she had gone so far away.
Renée went now and then to see her grandfather. It seemed as if he grew older and thinner and more morose, yet her sympathy went out to him curiously. She had heard the talk that he was suspected of being in league with the river pirates and supplying the Indians with rum, which was against the laws. One ship had been caught, the pirates overmastered, four of them sent to New Orleans in irons, and two had been wounded and drowned in an attempt to swim away. She felt a good deal troubled. He would not talk of the affair when she mentioned it.
“But you are so lonely here outside the palisade. Why do you not come in?” she inquired.
“It suits me well enough,” he answered roughly. “I did not ask you to stay here. And you need not come for my pleasure.”
“But if the Indians should attack you some time?”
“Bah! The Indians know me better,” with a scowl of disdain.
“Is Antoine Freneau my grandfather really?” she asked that evening as she sat in the moonlight with Denys.
“Why, yes,” in amaze at her question.
“Then it would be wicked not to—to have some regard for him,” she remarked unwillingly.
Gaspard did not answer at once. Antoine had dropped down year by year. He had not always been so churlish, though his discourteous, hermit-like ways were of long standing. He had never doubted but that he had been the father of the girl he loved, yet she had come up as a lily out of a quagmire. But how could Renée respect or regard him? And how little he cared for her!