"Do you mean to say," I interrupted, "that Joseph, who stayed only twenty-four hours with us, did not return to your woods,—if only to tell you his plans and say good-bye? Since he left us that day we have heard nothing of him."
"If you have had no news of him," replied Thérence, "I have some to give you. He did return—by night, like a thief who fears the sunshine. He went to his own lodge and took his clothes and his bagpipe, and went away without crossing the threshold of my father's hut, or so much as glancing our way. I was awake and saw it all. I watched every action, and when he disappeared in the woods, I felt I was as rigid as death. My father warmed me in the rays of the good God and his own great heart. He took me away to the open moor, and talked to me all one day, and all the next night, till I was able to pray and sleep. You know my father a little, dear friends, but you cannot know how he loves his children, how he comforts them, how he finds just the right thing to say to make them like himself, who is an angel from heaven hidden under the bark of an old oak! My father cured me. If it were not for him, I should despise Joseph; as it is, I have only ceased to love him."
Ending thus, Thérence again wiped her fine forehead, wet with perspiration, drew a long breath, kissed Brulette, and held out to me, laughing, her large and well-shaped white hand, and shook mine with the frankness of a young man.
TWENTY-SECOND EVENING.
I saw that Brulette was inclined to blame Joseph very severely, and I thought I ought to defend him a little. "I don't approve of his conduct so far as it shows ingratitude to you, Thérence," I said, "but inasmuch as you are now able to judge him quite fairly, won't you admit that at the bottom of his heart there was a sense of respect for you and a fear of deceiving you? All the world is not like you, my beautiful girl of the woods, and I think that very few persons have a pure enough heart and courage enough to go straight to the point and tell things just as they are. You have an amount of strength and virtue in you of which Joseph, and many others in his place, would be wholly incapable."
"I don't understand you," said Thérence.
"I do," said Brulette; "Joseph feared, perhaps, to put himself in the way of being charmed by your beauty, and of loving you for that, without giving you his whole heart as you deserved."
"Oh!" cried Thérence, scarlet with wounded pride, "that is just what I complain of. Say it boldly. Joseph feared to entice me into wrong-doing. He took no account of my good sense or my honor. Well, his respect would have consoled me; his fear is humiliating. Never mind, Brulette, I forgive him, because I no longer suffer, and I feel myself above him; but nothing can ever take out of my heart the sense that Joseph was ungrateful to me, and took a low view of his duty. I would ask you to let us say no more about it, if I were not obliged to tell you the rest; but I must speak, otherwise you will not know what to think of my brother's conduct."
"Ah, Thérence!" said Brulette, "I long to know what were the consequences of that misfortune which troubled us all so much over there."