“He didn’t kill Valescure, did he?”
“Not that—no. But Valescure is hurt bad—as bad. It was six to one and half a dozen to the other—both no good at all. But of course they’ll arrest the old man—your great friend! He’ll not give you any more fur-robes, that’s sure. He got away from the tavern, though, and he’s hiding somewhere. M’sieu’ Jean Jacques can’t protect him now; he isn’t what he once was in the parish. He’s done for, and old Dolores will have to go to trial. They’ll make it hot for him when they catch him. No more fur-robes from your Spanish friend, Virginie! You’ll have to look somewhere else for your beaux, though to be sure there are enough that’d be glad to get you with that farm of yours, and your thrifty ways, if you keep your character.”
Virginie was quite quiet now. The asperity and suggestiveness of the other’s speech produced a cooling effect upon her.
“Better hurry, Mere Langlois, or everybody won’t hear your story before sundown. If your throat gets tired, there’s Brown’s Bronchial Troches—” She pointed to an advertisement on the fence near by. “M. Fille’s cook says they cure a rasping throat.”
With that shot, Virginie Poucette whipped up her horses and drove on. She did not hear what Mere Langlois called after her, for Mere Langlois had been slow to recover from the unexpected violence dealt by one whom she had always bullied.
“Poor Jean Jacques!” said Virginie Poucette to herself as her horses ate up the ground. “That’s another bit of bad luck. He’ll not sleep to-night. Ah, the poor Jean Jacques—and all alone—not a hand to hold; no one to rumple that shaggy head of his or pat him on the back! His wife and Ma’m’selle Zoe, they didn’t know a good thing when they had it. No, he’ll not sleep to-night-ah, my dear Jean Jacques!”
CHAPTER XIX. SEBASTIAN DOLORES DOES NOT SLEEP
But Jean Jacques did sleep well that night; though it would have been better for him if he had not done so. The contractor’s workmen had arrived in the early afternoon, he had seen the first ton of debris removed from the ruins of the historic mill, and it was crowned by the gold Cock of Beaugard, all grimy with the fire, but jaunty as of yore. The cheerfulness of the workmen, who sang gaily an old chanson of mill-life as they tugged at the timbers and stones, gave a fillip to the spirits of Jean Jacques, to whom had come a red-letter day.
Like Mirza on the high hill of Bagdad he had had his philosophic meditations; his good talk with Virginie Poucette had followed; and the woman of her lingered in the feeling of his hand all day, as something kind and homelike and true. Also in the evening had come M. Fille, who brought him a message from Judge Carcasson, that he must make the world sing for himself again.