On this, however, Ruth was firm. Here she would stay, among these good people where she had made for herself a place and a home. He must come every week to Father Ponfret for his instructions, like any other convert. If on those occasions he also came to see her, well, she would, of course, be glad to see him and to know how he was progressing.
Afterwards? Well, afterwards, they would see.
And to this Jeffrey was forced to agree.
Old Robbideau Laclair, when he heard of this arrangement, grumbled that the way of the heretic was indeed made easy in these days. But his wife Philomena, scraping sharply with her stick, informed him that if the good Ruth saw fit to convert even a heathen Turk into a husband for herself she would no doubt make a good job of it.
So love came and went through the summer, practically unrebuked.
Again the Bishop came riding up to French Village with Arsene LaComb. But this time they rode in a jogging, rattling coach that swung up over the new line of railroad that came into the hills from Welden Junction. And Arsene was 341 very glad of this, for as he looked at his beloved M’sieur l’Eveque he saw that he was not now the man to have faced the long road up over the hills. He was not two, he was many years older and less sturdy.
The Bishop practised his French a little, but mostly he was silent and thoughtful. He was remembering that day, nearly two years ago now, when he had set two ambitious young souls upon a way which they did not like. What a coil of good and bad had come out of that doing of his. And again he wondered, as he had wondered then, whether he had done right. Who was to tell?
And again to-morrow he was to set those two again upon their way of life, for he was coming up to French Village to the wedding of Ruth Lansing to Jeffrey Whiting.
Jeffrey Whiting knelt by Ruth Lansing’s side in the little rough-finished sanctuary of the chapel which Father Ponfret had somehow managed to raise during that busy, poverty-burdened summer. But Jeffrey Whiting saw none of the poor makeshifts out of which the little priest had contrived a sanctuary to the high God. He was back again, in the night, on a dark, lone road, under the unconcerned stars, crying out to find God. Then God had come to him, with merciful, healing touch and lifted him out of the dust and agony of the road, and, finally, had brought him here, to this moment.