“But he loved the child very much,” she hinted.
“So much that he will fight them because they have poisoned her—he will fight them and not be scare.”
“It is strange!” she repeated.
“Oui, ma'm'selle,” he said, regarding her with still more suspicion.
“But before that morning—when you found them here under the tree! He told you—”
“He walk the street with her in his arm. I don't tell you some more about dat t'ing what I do not know!”
But she knew that he was withholding something from her. She mustered her courage.
“Mr. Provancher, the bad men are making threats that they will print stories about the child—and its mamma—to hurt your friend. And the stories will make the mamma very sad.”
“No stories can make her sad,” said old Etienne, solemnly. But he did not say that he had raked the mother from the canal. The law must not know!
“But I have heard about her,” she insisted.