"No, that is not it," said Noël; "I am perfectly sure you never cared for me or you could not give me up like this in a moment."
The girl did not answer for a time, for she was deeply wounded at his want of understanding, his non-comprehension of her most unselfish motives. Presently she turned to him, and said in a hurried tone, for she could scarcely control herself just then, "Noël, believe me it is for the best. Good-bye."
Before he had time to answer she had walked swiftly away, and was hid from his sight by the turn of the road. All had happened so quickly, the momentous decision had been made so entirely without effort on his part, that his breath was fairly taken away. But, beneath all his surprise and wounded pride was a feeling of relief scarce acknowledged to himself, though his first exclamation was one of distressed self-love, as he exclaimed angrily, "She has no feeling; she does not care."
Ah! M. Bois-le-Duc, your training of Noël McAllister was at fault somewhere. You grounded him thoroughly in Latin and the classics, but you taught him little of the study of human character, that most profoundly interesting of all studies. Had your teaching been different, Noël McAllister might have had a different estimation of the depths of a nature like Marie Gourdon's, of a woman's true unselfish devotion. He might have made an effort to keep what he had already won—which was above all price. Had your teaching not failed in this one essential point, Noël McAllister's life and career would have been far different. Well for him had it been so!
CHAPTER VII.
"O world! thy slippery turns! Friends, now fast sworn in love
inseparable, shall within this hour break out to bitterest enmity."
Coriolanus, Act iv., Scene iv.
It was two months later, a chilly October afternoon.
The glory of the maple and the sumach had departed, and a dingy russet brown had succeeded the more brilliant tints of early autumn. The tide was high, and the waves dashed angrily against the long pier at Rimouski.