Madame Arles did not forego either her solicitude or the persistence of her inquiry under the harsh rebuff of the Doctor. Again and again, after nightfall, he saw her figure flitting back and forth upon the street, over against Adèle's window; and the good man perplexed himself vainly with a hundred queries as to what such strange conduct could mean. The village physician, too, had been addressed by this anxious lady with a tumult of questionings; and the old gentleman—upon whose sympathies the eager inquirer had won an easier approach than upon those of the severe parson—had taken hearty satisfaction in assuring her, within a few days after the night interview we have detailed, that the poor girl was mending, was out of danger, in fact, and would be presently in a condition to report for herself.
After this, and through the long convalescence, Madame Arles was seen more rarely upon the village street. Yet the town gossips were busy with the character and habits of the "foreign lady." Her devotion to the little child of the outcast Boody woman was most searchingly discussed at all the tea-tables of the place; and it was special object of scandal, that the foreign lady, neglectful of the Sabbath ministrations of the parson, was frequently to be seen wandering about the fields in "meeting-time," attended very likely by that poor wee thing of a child, upon whose head the good people all visited, with terrible frowns, the sins of the parents. No woman, of whatever condition, could maintain a good reputation in Ashfield under such circumstances. Dame Tourtelot enjoyed a good sharp fling at the "trollop."
"I allers said she was a bad woman," submitted the stout Dame; and her audience (consisting of the Deacon and Miss Almiry) would have had no more thought of questioning the implied decision than of cutting down the meeting-house steeple.
"And I'm afeard," continued the Dame, "that Adeel isn't much better; she keeps a crucifix in her chamber!—needn't to look at me, Tourtelot!—Miss Johns told me all about it, and I don't think the parson should allow it. I think you oughter speak to the parson, Tourtelot."
The good Deacon scratched his head, over the left ear, in a deprecating manner.
"And I've heerd this Miss Arles has been a-writin' to Mr. Maverick, Adeel's father,—needn't to look at me, Tourtelot!—the postmaster told me; and she's been receivin' furren letters,—filled with Popery, I ha'n't a doubt."
In short, the poor woman bore a most execrable reputation; and Doctor Johns, good as he was, took rather a secret pride in such startling confirmation of his theories in respect to French character. He wrote to his friend Maverick, informing him that his suspicions in regard to Madame Arles were, he feared, "only too well-founded. Her neglect of Sabbath ordinances, her unhallowed associations, her extreme violence of language, (which was on a signal occasion uttered in my hearing,) have satisfied me that your distrust was only too reasonable. I shall guard Adaly from all further intercourse with extreme care."
Indeed, Miss Eliza and the Doctor (the latter from the best of motives) had scrupulously kept from Adèle all knowledge of Madame Arles's impatient and angry solicitude during her illness. And when Adèle, on those first sunny days of her convalescence, learned incidentally that her countrywoman was still a resident of the village, it pained her grievously to think that she had heard no tender message from her during all that weary interval of sickness, and she was more than half inclined (though she did not say this) to adopt the harshest judgments of the spinster. There was not a visitor at the parsonage, indeed, but, if the name were mentioned, sneered at the dark-faced, lonely woman, who was living such a godless life, and associating, as if from sheer bravado, with those who were under the ban of all the reputable people of Ashfield.
When, therefore, Adèle, on one of her early walks with Reuben, after her recovery was fully established, encountered, in a remote part of the village, Madame Arles, trailing after her the little child of shame,—and yet darting toward the French girl, at first sight, with her old effusion,—Adèle met her coolly, so coolly, indeed, that the poor woman was overcome, and, hurrying the little child after her, disappeared with a look of wretchedness upon her face that haunted Adèle for weeks and months. Thereafter very little was seen of Madame Arles upon the principal street of the village; and her avoidance of the family of the parsonage was as studied and resolute as either the Doctor or Miss Eliza could have desired. A moment of chilling indifference on the part of Adèle had worked stronger repulse than all the harsh rebuffs of the elder people; but of this the kind-hearted French girl was no way conscious: yet she was painfully conscious of a shadowy figure that still, from time to time, stole after her in her twilight walks, and that, if she turned upon it, shrank stealthily from observation. There was a mystery about the whole matter which oppressed the poor girl with a sense of terror. She could not doubt that the interest of her old teacher in herself had been a kindly one; but whatever it might have been, that interest was now so furtive, and affected such concealment, that she was half led to entertain the cruellest suspicions of Miss Eliza, who did not fail to enlarge upon the godlessness of the stranger's life, and to set before Adèle the thousand alluring deceits by which Satan sought to win souls to himself.
Rumor, one day, brought the story, that the foreign woman, who had been the subject of so much village scandal, lay ill, and was fast failing; and on hearing this, Adèle would have broken away from all the parsonage restraints, to offer what consolations she could: nor would the good Doctor have repelled her; but the rumor, if not false, was, in his view, grossly exaggerated; since, on the Sunday previous only, some officious member of his parish had reported the Frenchwoman as strolling over the hills, decoying with her that little child of her fellow-lodger, which she had tricked out in the remnants of her French finery, and was thus wantoning throughout the holy hours of service.