"The creature is not following what I say!" she exclaimed. "Angeel—you can remember! You know what I have been saying. You are to learn to draw, perhaps to paint, to make little pictures, caricatures—oh, it will be so pleasant for you, and by and by people will pay you to do this for them. See, petite, you must be very wise for yourself, for the poor kind maman cannot be wise for you."
And Angeel's heavy head nodded sagely in swift discernment of this evident truth, for Artémise was now tired of the subject and of Pauline's endless farewells and preferred to look out of the window.
Rare sight on a December day, the peacock was still pacing to and fro, for the air was as mild and balmy as in June, and although the road ran water and the trees were rapidly losing their icy trappings the courtyard had been swept of snow and therefore remained almost dry. The beauty of the glissade was over. But Artémise looked only for a moment at the peacock. Along the road from the direction of the village were advancing two men, Dr. Renaud and the priest; behind them, a few steps, walked Martin, the Indian. They came near the stone fence, they stopped, all three, and seemed to confer, studying from time to time the front of the house. Absorbed in watching them, Artémise listened no longer at all to Miss Clairville's pronouncements and indeed very little was left to say. Pauline put on her gloves, slung her muff around her neck and submitted to a frantic embrace from the warm-hearted, lonely little girl, then turned to bid farewell to the mother.
"Two hours by my watch!" she cried gaily. "Which of us has been the gossip, the chatterbox, eh, Artémise! Eh! bien, I wish you a very sincere and a very long good-bye." Some emotion crept into her throat, into her voice. The child was her brother's. This poor girl, the mother, bore her own name, and she could not harden her heart entirely against the ill-starred couple, and why should she! She was bidding them both farewell, probably for ever, and the prospect so soothed her that she ejaculated, "Poor children!" and wiped away a tear.
"Take great care of yourself, Artémise, for Angeel's sake and mine, and for the sake of the name you bear and the place it has held in the country. But what are you looking at so intently? What is the matter out there, Artémise?"
At that instant the priest detached himself from the others and entering the domain walked slowly up to the door and knocked.
Pauline, not comprehending the nature of the visit, went herself and opened to Father Rielle. His long face told her nothing—was it not always long? The presence of Renaud and the guide, whom she also saw in the background, told her nothing; their being there was perhaps only a coincidence and they had not turned their faces as yet in her direction. Precisely as Crabbe had met his fate without seeing it arrive, although half an hour earlier he had foreseen death and prayed against it, she faced the priest with a smiling countenance, her tremors past, her conviction—that her lover was alive and well and able to take her away that instant if necessary—quite unaltered. Father Rielle had a difficult task to perform and he realized it.
Twice he essayed to speak and twice he stammered only unmeaning words. Pauline translated his incoherent and confused murmurs with characteristic and vigorous conceit; she believed him so anxious to make her a private farewell instead of a stereotyped adieu in public that she thought he had walked out from St. Ignace on purpose.
"It is all settled and therefore hopeless!" she began. "You cannot interfere or change me now."
The priest repeated the words after her. "Settled? Hopeless?" he uttered in a furtive manner as if anxious to escape.