"I have one," said Zabette, sitting up straight and putting some orderly touches to her disarranged mouchoir. "He gave it to me the very last night."
Suzanne looked at her enviously, and mopped her red eyes. "All I have," she sighed, "is a little shell box he brought me, with the motto, À ma chérie. He gave me that the very last morning of all. It is very beautiful, but no one but me has seen it yet."
"You must show it to me sometime," said Zabette. "I have a right to see it."
"If you will let me look at the picture," consented the other, guardedly.
"Yes, you may look at it," said Zabette, "so long as you do not forget that it belongs to me."
"To you!" retorted the other. "And have you a better right to it than I, seeing that he would have been my husband in a month's time? You are a bad, cruel girl; you have no heart. It is a mercy he escaped the traps you set for him—my poor Maxence!"
A thousand taunting words came to Zabette's lips, but she controlled herself, rose to her feet with a show of dignity, and quitted the wharf. She resolved that she would never speak to that Benoît girl again. To do so was only to be insulted.
She went back to her home on the Grande Anse and endeavored to take up her everyday life again as though nothing had happened. She hid her grief from the neighbors, even from her own parents, who had never suspected the strength of her attachment for Maxence. By day she could keep herself busy about the house, and the secret would only be a dull pain; but at night, especially when the wind blew, it would gnaw and gnaw at her heart like a hungry beast.