"You are driving him to Clairville?" A quick jealousy animated the priest's eager question.
"I am, but we can make room for you. Certainly, my friend, we are neither of us so very stout and you are thin; you shall sit in our laps—oh yes, I take no denial! You shall come with us, Father Rielle, and we three shall descend upon this sick seigneur of yours and his housekeeper and see what they are doing. Drive her back in the evening, if you like."
While the priest hesitated, Ringfield and Poussette appeared at the door, and the instant the latter heard of the expedition he also wished to go.
"I cannot see why!" cried Dr. Renaud angrily. "One charrette will not hold us all; it is going to snow and I must get back before dark. I'm calling here to leave an order for Gagnon about a coffin for old Telesphore Tremblay who died yesterday, and I have promised to see his poor wife to-night."
"Then I shall take my own buggy and Mr. Ringfield can go with me. The curé can go with you, sir."
"Well, if the whole village wishes to pay its respects to a crazy man all at the same time, let them come!" roared the irascible doctor. "You didn't care to go till you saw us going. But put your horse in, put him in; we will wait for you."
"Bien, M'sieu! I have three hams and a sack of potatoes; they shall go too."
This dialogue had been overheard by Pauline, sitting at cards with Miss Cordova in the front room, and with her natural impetuosity she jumped up, declaring that if Henry were well enough to see "these others," he was well enough to see her. Her impulsive movements sent the cards and counters flying up through the air, and one card hit Miss Cordova on the left eye directly over the pupil. As lightly as if flicked by a clever finger, but as unerringly as if deliberately and viciously aimed at her, one of the four sharp points of cardboard selected her dark eye for its target, and with a scream she too sprang up, overturning the table and seizing Pauline by the shoulder. The pain and distress were considerable, and Miss Clairville, opening the window, called for Dr. Renaud, who came at once to look at the eye and recommended bathing, bandages and complete rest. The exquisite tenderness of the inflamed organ gave Miss Cordova so much annoyance that after ten minutes she retired to her room, and the doctor again proposed himself ready to start for Lac Calvaire. The weather, fine and mild for so long, was changing now with every hour, and it was becoming strangely dark overhead.
"Whoever comes with me must prepare for a storm," said he, glancing at the blackening sky, "only a few flurries of snow, perhaps, but one cannot tell—it may prove more."
"You are sure there can be no danger of infection?" asked Ringfield, with an anxious glance at Pauline, who had raced to her room, stuck imitation solitaires in her ears, donned a worn-out but well-fitting seal jacket and muff and a dashing black and scarlet hat, and now stood in the village street—the embodiment of piquant French womanhood—quite conscious of her charms and insufferably weary of having no audience to show them off to! A certain disdain sprang into her treatment of Ringfield at this time, and it was a question with her, should he ever ask her to be his wife, whether she would not inevitably tire of the high aims and lofty ideals he no doubt would impose upon her.