“Thou shalt speak as I speak to thee.”
“Thy face is pale-art thou ill, mon pere?”
“I have no beard, and the moon shines in my face.”
“Thy look is as that of one without sight.”
“Nay, nay, I can see the two lights in thy window, my son.”
“Joy—joy, a little while, and I shall clasp my Fanchon in my arms!”
“Thy Fanchon, and the child—and the child.”
The fire sent a trembling glow through the room of a hut on a Voshti hill, and the smell of burning fir and camphire wood filtered through the air with a sleepy sweetness. So delicate and faint between the quilts lay the young mother, the little Fanchon, a shining wonder still in her face, and the exquisite touch of birth on her—for when a child is born the mother also is born again. So still she lay until one who gave her into the world stooped, and drawing open the linen at her breast, nestled a little life there, which presently gave a tiny cry, the first since it came forth. Then Fanchon’s arms drew up, and, with eyes all tenderly burning, she clasped the babe to her breast, and as silk breast touched silk cheek, there sprang up in her the delight and knowledge that the doom of the White Omen was not for herself. Then she called the child by its father’s name, and said into the distance: “Gustave, Gustave, come back!”
And the mother of Fanchon, remembering one night so many years before, said, under her breath: “Michel, Michel, thou art gone so long!”
With their speaking, Gustave and the priest entered on them; and Fanchon crying out for joy, said: