“Miss Lethierry is a woman. She is of age. It depends only on herself. Her uncle is but her uncle. You love each other——”
Déruchette interrupted in a gentle voice, and asked, “How came you here?”
“Make yourselves one,” repeated Gilliatt.
Déruchette began to have a sense of the meaning of his words. She stammered out:
“My poor uncle!”
“If the marriage was yet to be,” said Gilliatt, “he would refuse. When it is over he will consent. Besides, you are going to leave here. When you return he will forgive.”
Gilliatt added, with a slight touch of bitterness, “And then he is thinking of nothing just now but the rebuilding of his boat. This will occupy his mind during your absence. The Durande will console him.”
“I cannot,” said Déruchette, in a state of stupor which was not without its gleam of joy. “I must not leave him unhappy.”
“It will be but for a short time,” answered Gilliatt.
Caudray and Déruchette had been, as it were, bewildered. They recovered themselves now. The meaning of Gilliatt’s words became plainer as their surprise diminished. There was a slight cloud still before them; but their part was not to resist. We yield easily to those who come to save. Objections to a return into Paradise are weak. There was something in the attitude of Déruchette, as she leaned imperceptibly upon her lover, which seemed to make common cause with Gilliatt’s words. The enigma of the presence of this man, and of his utterances, which, in the mind of Déruchette in particular, produced various kinds of astonishment, was a thing apart. He said to them, “Be man and wife!” This was clear; if there was responsibility, it was his. Déruchette had a confused feeling that, for many reasons, he had the right to decide upon her fate. Caudray murmured, as if plunged in thought, “An uncle is not a father.”