"Yes, men do think of it. But Anne will yield to my judgment, will she not?"
"I will do as you think best," she answered. But no color rose in her pale face, as he had expected; the pressing danger and the fear clothed the subject with a shroud.
Miss Lois did not hide her anger and disappointment. Yet she would not leave Anne. And therefore the next morning Mrs. Young and her niece, with health much improved by their sojourn in the country, bade good-by to their hostess, and went southward in the little stage on their way back to "Washington."
Père Michaux was not seen at the farm-house at all; he had returned to the village from the fields, and had taken rooms for a short sojourn at the Timloe hotel.
The "Washington," in this instance, was a small town seventy miles distant; here Mrs. Young and her niece took lodgings, and began, with what patience they could muster, their hard task of waiting.
As for Père Michaux, he went fishing.
EXTRACT FROM THE LETTER OF A SUMMER FISHERMAN.
"I have labored hard, Anne—harder than ever before in my life. I thought I knew what patience was, in my experience with my Indians and half-breeds. I never dreamed of its breadth until now! For my task has been the hard one of winning the trust of a trustless mind—trustless, yet crafty; of subduing its ever-rising reasonless suspicion; of rousing its nearly extinct affections; of touching its undeveloped, almost dead, conscience, and raising it to the point of confession. I said to myself that I would do all this in sincerity; that I would make myself do it in sincerity; that I would teach the poor creature to love me, and having once gained his warped affection, I would assume the task of caring for him as long as life lasted. If I did this in truth and real earnestness I might succeed, as the missionaries of my Church succeed, with the most brutal savages, because they are in earnest. Undertaking this, of course I also accepted the chance that all my labor, regarding the hope that you have cherished, might be in vain, and that this poor bundle of clay might not be, after all, the criminal we seek. Yet had it been so, my care of him through life must have been the same; having gained his confidence, I could never have deserted him while I lived. Each day I have labored steadily; but often I have advanced so slowly that I seemed to myself not to advance at all.
"I began by going to the pond to fish. We met daily. At first I did not speak; I allowed him to become accustomed to my presence. It was a long time before I even returned his glance of confused respect and acquaintance as our boats passed near each other, for he had at once recognized the priest. I built my foundations with exactest care and patience, often absenting myself in order to remove all suspicion of watchfulness or regularity from his continually suspicious mind; for suspicion, enormously developed, is one of his few mental powers. I had to make my way through its layers as a minute blood-vessel penetrates the cumbrous leathern hide of the rhinoceros.
"I will not tell you all the details now; but at last, one morning, by a little chance event, my long, weary, and apparently unsuccessful labor was crowned with success. He became attached to me. I suppose in all his poor warped life before no one had ever shown confidence in him or tried to win his affection.