"She certainly is very ill, but I cannot agree with Doctor Prenoveau, if he says there is no hope." The words were kindly spoken, for he had noticed how the old man trembled and how poorly assumed was his air of defiance.
"You really think she may not die, doctor?" he asked, almost incredulously.
"I really think not."
Farmer Frechette sank heavily on his chair. "I am beginning to feel old, very old, doctor," he said weakly.
Never before had Doctor Chalmers taken so keen an interest in a case. Inch by inch he contested with death for the life of the young girl upon whose recovery was founded so many hopes.
It was a beautiful June day when, for the first time since Adele's illness, she ventured out of the house, supported on the young doctor's arm, and walked as far as the little garden at the back of the house. Very lovely she looked in her light-colored, soft, clinging dress, large brimmed straw hat, the health color struggling back to her cheeks, her sweet lips parted, and her heavily fringed dark eyes lighted up with hope and happiness.
Among his friends, Doctor Chalmers was known as a man not prone to many words. Could they but have heard him this afternoon as he sat by her side on the quaint garden seat, they simply would have been astounded.
It had come so gradually, this love of his, that before he was quite aware, it had taken possession of his heart so that no reasoning could have forced it to withdraw. He saw no reason, indeed, why he should wish to banish it; besides being beautiful and winning, she had received an excellent education, and was in every way fitted to be his wife. Of Adele's dedication to the Church from her birth, he knew nothing, so that no misgivings assailed him. Little wonder then that his heart should be light, and that the primitive garden should appear to him the most beautiful spot he had ever seen.
After this little walk and chat in the garden, life seemed to come back to her with strides. By the end of August Adele was quite strong again. The change in her health made a new man of her father; from the day Doctor Prenoveau had said she would not recover, until the day Doctor Chalmers had pronounced her out of danger, he had not entered the doors of the church. Now all was different; twice a week he went to confession, and almost every day knelt before the altar and asked forgiveness for the dreadful sins of the past. It had never struck him as being strange that Doctor Chalmers should continue to visit his house after she had recovered. He had a hazy idea that the doctor's triumph over his daughter's disease was the cause of the interest he took in her. The preposterous thought that anyone should want to marry Adele no more entered his imagination than would the idea of anyone wanting to marry one of the dark-robed nuns at the convent.
Everyone in St. Jerome knew that she was to take the veil. If his wife at times had fears, she never mentioned them to him.