M. Thibaut bowed. "It will be very pleasant," he repeated.
Félicité rose quietly and went to the kitchen for a moment, coming back with a plate of minced rabbit for her father-in-law. "Voilà, papa," she said gently, and the old man stopped poking at the flies in his cider with his fork and began to eat.
Suddenly, in his evident agony, Joyselle again looked at Brigit, and all her misery of suspense and curiosity flew to her eyes. "What is it?" they asked him. "Why are you tortured, and why are you torturing me who love you?"
He looked long at her, and then seeing her sympathetic suffering and her passion of wounded love, his face cleared, and for the first time that day he looked like himself.
He began talking, and in a few moments was making everyone at the table roar with laughter.
Brigit, though deeply relieved, was more puzzled than ever. "I want to talk to you after dinner," she said, leaning towards him, and he bowed. "I, too, have things to say to you, my dear," he answered, and they were both wildly happy.
Then the Mayor rose, and in short and stereotyped phrase drank to the health of the bride and groom.
The bridegroom had fallen asleep and was not wakened, but the bride bowed with some dignity.
"M. le curé—will you say a few words?" asked Victor courteously.
The old priest rose in obedience to the summons, and murmured a kind of blessing on the two he had joined together in his own youth. He remembered them both very well as they had been in that day; far better than he could in the days of their middle age. Now their three lives were nearly over: "We are all very old," he faltered, fumbling at his snuff-box, "very old——"