But Marpasse was no sooner out of the house than a delirious mood seized her, and she ran like a girl, her wet eyes ablaze, her face exultant. There was no need for Grimbald to ask her how things sped.
“Love is lord of all,” she sang; “and I have the weight of a lie off my shoulders! Good saints, good saints—I wish I could give you a lapful of silver!”
She laughed up to Grimbald in her delight, caught him by the shoulders, and kissed him full upon the mouth.
“Mea culpa, Father; I am a mad fool, but my heart was in the venture, and when I am glad—like a dog—I must show it.”
The sunlight pierced the faggot wall of the shed, and burnt like golden tongues on the sombre cloth of the man’s cassock. Something in Grimbald’s eyes sobered Marpasse abruptly. It was not anger, not an amused and fatherly tolerance, but a look in which the deep strong heart of the man betrayed itself. Marpasse caught her breath, and went fiercely red under her brown skin. Then, a sudden virginal softness seemed to steal over her face. She hung her head, but not foolishly. For the moment neither she nor Grimbald spoke.
Marpasse gave a short, curious laugh, picked up a rotten stick, and began to snap it into small pieces between her hands.
“May they be very happy,” she said; “the love of a strong man is life to a woman, Father—and the children that may come of it.”
She looked up quickly at Grimbald, and her bold eyes had grown like the eyes of a girl.
“I might have made a good mother—but there——!” and she threw the pieces of broken wood aside, and spread her hands “children have not come my way—nor the man who will master me,” and she was silent, staring at the ground.
Grimbald’s face shone like a rock with the sunlight on it.