"If thou didst do so," he continued, threateningly, "it will all come out in a newspaper,—'Melting Innocence of an Acadien Landlady. She Tells a Reporter in Five Minutes the Story of Her Life.'"
"It will not appear," said Mrs. Rose, hastily. "He is a worthy young man, and handsome, too. There is not on the Bay a handsomer young man. I will ask him to write nothing, and he will listen to me."
"Oh, thou false one," cried the young man, half in vexation, half in perplexity. "I wish that thou wert a child,—I would shake thee till thy teeth chattered!"
Mrs. Rose ran from the room. "He is a pig, an imbecile, and he terrifies me so that I tell what is not true. What will Father Duvair say to me? I will rise at six to-morrow, and go to confession."
Vesper went early to bed that night, and slept soundly until early the next morning, when he opened his eyes to a vision of hazy green fields, a wide sheet of tremulous water, and a quiet, damp road, bordered by silent houses. He sprang from his bed, and went to the open window. The sun was just coming from behind a bank of clouds. He watched the Bay lighting up under its rays, the green fields brightening, the moisture evaporating; then hastily throwing on his clothes, he went down-stairs, unlatched the front door, and hurried across the road into a hay-field, where the newly cut grass, dripping with moisture, wet his slippered but stockingless feet.
Down by the rocks he saw a small bathing-house. He slipped off his clothes, and, clad only in a thin bathing-suit, stood shivering for an instant at the edge of the water. "It will be frightfully cold," he muttered. "Dare I—yes, I do," and he plunged boldly into the deliciously salt waves, and swam to and fro, until he was glowing from head to foot.
As he was hurrying up to the inn, a few minutes later, he saw, coming down the road, a small two-wheeled cart, in which was seated Mrs. Rose à Charlitte. She was driving a white pony, and she sat demure, charming, with an air of penitence about her, and wearing the mourning garb of Acadien women,—a plain black dress, a black shawl, and a black silk handkerchief, drawn hood-wise over her flaxen mop of hair and tied under her chin.
The young man surveyed her approvingly. She seemed to belong naturally to the cool, sweet dampness of the morning, and he guessed correctly that she had been to early mass in the white church whose steeple he could see in the distance. He was amused with the shy, embarrassed "Bon jour" (good morning) that she gave him as she passed, and murmuring, "The shadow of The Evening News is still upon her," he went to his room, and made his toilet for breakfast.
An hour later, a loud bell rang through the house, and Vesper, in making his way to the dining-room, met a reserved, sulky-faced young man in the hall, who bowed coolly and stepped aside for him to pass.