Meanwhile Breagh saw nothing but the little red mouth with the subtly wooing smile on it ... the gleaming jewels that were shadowed by their covert of black lashes.... Her will bent heavily on his, weakened by his worship of her. In another instant he would have asked what she wanted him to do.
But the heavy footsteps of the priest, clumping on the little crazy stair, recalled Breagh from the rapids toward which he had been drifting. In another moment the Curé came into the room. He had a knotted blue handkerchief in his hand, which weighed somewhat heavily. He said with a good-humored smile as he untied one of the knots, and took out a little pile of silver:
"Here behold my savings bank! Your fifteen francs, Mademoiselle!"
He was earnest to count them out and return them to her, and she was as earnest that the coins should not be given back.... But she could not deny her poverty when the good man charged her with it, saying:
"Accept the return of this money as a mortification salutary for the health of your soul!"
Then he tied up the handkerchief and stuffed it away under his cassock, and asked them:
"Where are you journeying together, my children? I have a reason for wishing to know!"
He had turned to P. C. Breagh, still thrilling with the memory of that strange look Juliette had cast upon him. The young man answered, glowing through his sunbrown:
"Wherever Mademoiselle de Bayard is desirous to go!"
The Curé pursed his mouth and turned to Juliette; and then sabots clumped in the passage, and a cracked voice cried from the door: