"Does any one else know of this?"
"No, ma'am, no one. My mother told me on her death-bed. I needn't say the secret was kept from my grandfather and father. The women seemed to take a sort of devilish pride in even a left-handed connection with such a distinguished family."
"Have you no pride in it?"
"Yes, ma'am,—lots in this way. I'm getting on in years, and being lonely I kind of hanker after extending my trailers to other families, just like some old weed that's soon going to be rooted up."
"You shall not regret telling me," she said, brokenly, "though it is one more load for me to carry. Man, I am very unhappy."
"I know it," he said, under his breath.
She took a swift resolution. There was something in this man,—she did not know what it was,—possibly it was the tie of blood, possibly because in him she felt the French life and vivacity, and tenacity of purpose under seeming frivolity that was so strongly akin to her family, and so unlike the cold, frigid resolution of Justin, the descendant of the Puritans. At any rate, she liked him, liked him far better than the more polished Justin, and without resolving to entrust her secret to him, she yet started to play the dangerous game of recalling her lost brother to his memory.
"It is your cousin's," she said, suddenly, holding up the ring. "It belonged to my unhappy brother Louis. Do you remember him?"
"Am I likely to forget my relations?" he said, keenly. "There is not a man Jack nor a woman Jill of all the Gastonguays that I've not watched. Yes, I call up your brother Louis, the gamiest of the lot. He used to stone me, because his friends said I favoured him. Once I fetched him a sly snowball behind the ear, but I didn't put a stone in it because he was of my blood— Hold on a minute, for mercy sakes, ma'am. Hold on—hold on!"
Miss Gastonguay drew back. Was there a snake in her path that this excitable man behaved so strangely? They were close to one of the rustic seats placed at intervals along the walks of the wood, and on one of the seats he suddenly sank, guarding his eyes with one bandaged hand and stretching out the other as if to keep her away.