This ceremony over, they walked towards Mont Violet, averting their heads as they passed the Manor Cartier, in a kind of tribute to its departed master—as a Stuart Legitimist might pass the big palace at the end of the Mall in London. In the wood-path, Fille took his sister's hand.
"I will tell you what you are so trembling to hear," he said. "There they are at peace, Jean Jacques and Virginie—that best of best women."
"To think—married to Virginie Poucette—to think of that!" His sister's voice fluttered as she spoke. "But entirely. There was nothing in the way—and she meant to have him, the dear soul! I do not blame her, for at bottom he is as good a man as lives. Our Judge called him 'That dear fool, Jean Jacques, a man of men in his way, after all,' and our Judge was always right—but yes, nearly always right."
After a moment of contented meditation he resumed. "Well, when Virginie sold her place here and went to live with her sister out at Shilah in the West, she said, 'If Jean Jacques is alive, he will be on the land which was Zoe's, which he bought for her. If he is alive—then!' So it was, and by one of the strange accidents which chance or women like Virginie, who have plenty of courage in their simpleness, arrange, they met on that three hundred and sixty acres. It was like the genius of Jean Jacques to have done that one right thing which would save him in the end—a thing which came out of his love for his child—the emotion of an hour. Indeed, that three hundred and sixty acres was his salvation after he learned of Zoe's death, and the other little Zoe, his grandchild, was denied to him—to close his heart against what seemed that last hope, was it not courage? And so, and so he has the reward of his own soul—a home at last once more."
"With Virginie Poucette—Fille, Fille, how things come round!" exclaimed the little lady in the tiny bonnet with the mauve strings.
"More than Virginie came round," he replied almost oracularly. "Who, think you, brought him the news that coal was found on his acres—who but the husband of Virginie's sister! Then came Virginie. On the day Jean Jacques saw her again, he said to her, 'What you would have given me at such cost, now let me pay for with the rest of my life. It is the great thought which was in your heart that I will pay for with the days left to me.'"
A flickering smile brightened the sensitive ascetic face, and humour was in the eyes. "What do you think Virginie said to that? Her sister told me. Virginie said to that, 'You will have more days left, Jean Jacques, if you have a better cook. What do you like best for supper?' And Jean Jacques laughed much at that. Years ago he would have made a speech at it!"
"Then he is no more a philosopher?"
"Oh always, always, but in his heart, and not with his tongue. I cried, and so did he, when we met and when we parted. I think I am getting old, for indeed I could not help it: yet there was peace in his eyes—peace."
"His eyes used to rustle so."