Flower of the Gorse

by Louis Tracy

  E-text prepared by readbueno, Suzanne Shell, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net}

  FLOWER OF THE GORSE

  by

  LOUIS TRACY

  Author ofThe Wings of the Morning,One Wonderful Night, etc.

  New YorkGrosset & DunlapPublishers

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  Copyright 1915 by Edward J. Clode.

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  _Dans la ville des meunieres, Pont Aven, pays d'Amour, Au Bord des ruisseaux d'eau claire, Fleur d'Ajonc chante toujours._

  --BRETON SONG.

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  CONTENTS

  I _The Tower and the Well_ II _The Feast of Sainte Barbe_ III _The Wreck_ IV _The Home-coming_ V _The Lifting of the Veil_ VI _A Lull_ VII _Mischief_ VIII _The Tightening of the Net_ IX _Showing How Harvey Raymond Began the Attack_ X _Madeleine's Flight_ XI _Mutterings of the Storm_ XII _Wherein both the Reef and Mr. Raymond Yield Information_ XIII _Showing How Tollemache Took Charge_ XIV _A Breton Reckoning_

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  FLOWER OF THE GORSE

  CHAPTER I

  THE TOWER AND THE WELL

  "_O, la, la!_ See, then, the best of good luck for each one of us thisyear!"

  Although Mere Pitou's rotund body, like Falstaff's, was fat and scant o'breath, and the Pilgrims' Way was steep and rocky, some reserve ofenergy enabled her to clap her hands and scream the tidings of highfortune when the notes of a deep-toned bell pealed from an alp stillhidden among the trees.

  Three girls, fifty paces higher up the path, halted when they heard thatglad cry--and, indeed, who would not give ear to such augury?

  "Why should the clang of a bell foretell good luck, Mother?" criedBarbe, the youngest, seventeen that September day, and a true Bretonmaid, with eyes like sloes, and cheeks the tint of ripe russet apples,and full red lips ever ready to smile shyly, revealing the big, white,even teeth of a peasant.

  "Mother" signaled that explanations must await a more opportune moment.

  "Madame Pitou can't utter another word," laughed Yvonne, the tallestgirl of the trio.

  "She has had some secret on the tip of her tongue all day," saidMadeleine, who was so like Barbe that she might have been an eldersister; though the sole tie between the two was residence in the samevillage. "Don't you remember how she kept saying in the train?--'Now,little ones, ask Sainte Barbe to be kind to you. She'll hear yourprayers a kilometer away, even though you whisper them.'"

  "Yes, and Mama would have liked us to begin singing a hymn when westarted from the foot of the hill, but she thought Monsieur Ingersolland Monsieur Tollemache would only be amused," put in Barbe.

  "They would certainly have been amused before Madame Pitou reached thetop, singing!" tittered Yvonne.

  "Is it possible that I shall ever be as stout as Mama?" murmured Barbe,and the mere notion of such a catastrophe evoked a poignant anxiety thatwas mirrored in her eyes.

  "Ah, Mignonne, now you know the form your petition to Sainte Barbe musttake," smiled Yvonne.

  "It's all very well for you, Yvonne, to chaff us smaller ones," poutedMadeleine. "You're tall, and slim, and fair, and you carry yourself likethe pretty American ladies who come to Pont Aven in the season, theladies who wear such simple clothes, and hardly look a year older thantheir daughters, and walk leagues in men's boots, and play tennis before_dejeuner_. Of course you can't help being elegant. You're Americanyourself."

  The recipient of this tribute turned it aside deftly. "Sometimes I thinkI am more Breton than American," she said.

  "Yes, everyone says that," agreed Barbe loyally. "Next year, Yvonne,they'll make you Queen of the Gorse."

  With the innocence of youth, or perhaps with its carelessness, Barbe hadraised a topic as prickly as the gorse itself, because Madeleine hadbeen a maid of honor that year, and might reasonably expect the regalplace in the succeeding Fete of the Fleurs d'Ajonc. Happily, Yvonne, ifendowed with a sense of humor, was eminently good-natured and tactful.

  "Nothing of the sort," she replied. "My father will never allow me to bephotographed, and there would be a riot in Pont Aven if the shopscouldn't sell picture postcards of the Queen."

  "Hurry up!" cried single-minded Barbe. "Let's pray to Sainte Barbebefore Mother comes, or she'll be telling me what I must ask for, and Imean to take your advice, Yvonne."

  * * * * *

  Two faces were turned instantly toward the invisible shrine of thepuissant saint, and it would place no heavy strain on the intellect toguess what favors were sought. But Yvonne hesitated. She had not beenreared in the precise religious faith of her companions. Opinionsgarnered in the Bohemian atmosphere of John Ingersoll's studio were inill accord with the uncompromising dogma taught in the convent on thehill overlooking the estuary of the Aven and labored by every sermonpreached in the picturesque church near the bridge.

  Yet at that instant some words uttered by her father reached her ears,and, moved by sudden impulse, she raised her eyes to the tiny arch oflight that marked the spot near the summit where the interlacingbranches of the avenue of elms came to an end.

  "Sweet Lady Barbara," she breathed, "if you have it in your power tofavor us poor mortals, please give my dear father a happy year!"

  The bell, after a few seconds of silence, renewed its clamor, and thepretty unbeliever accepted the omen. Her friends, of course, regardedthe answer as more than propitious: it was an assurance, an undoubtedpromise of saintly intercession.

  "I love Mama more than anyone in the world, but I couldn't bear tomeasure a meter round my waist," said Barbe confidently.

  "Even though I may never be Queen, it is something to have been a maidof honor," said Madeleine, demurely conciliatory now that her prayer wassafely lodged.

  Yvonne heard, but paid no heed. She was looking at the three peopleapproaching the ledge of rock on which she and the others were standing.

  Madame Pitou, like the girls, wore the costume of Brittany, conforming,of course, to the time-honored fashion that allots a special headgear towomankind in each district. Thus the coif supplies an unerring label ofresidence. A woman from Pont Aven would recognize a woman from Riec andanother from Concarneau though she had never seen either before in herlife; while all three would unite, without possibility of error, insaying of a fourth, "She comes from Auray."

  The two men in Mere Pitou's company were just as surely classed by theirattire as the women by their coifs. Both were artists, and each obeyedthe unwritten law which says that he who would paint must don aknickerbocker suit, wear a wide-brimmed felt hat, disregard collarbuttons, and display a loosely knotted necktie. Ingersoll, the elder,was content with clothes of brown corduroy which had seen many, if notbetter, days. His boots were strong and hobnailed, and his easy strideup the rough and uneven track would reassure one who doubted the staminaof his seemingly frail body. Tollemache, who affected gray tweed, aFrench gray silk tie, gray woolen stockings, and brown brogues, lookedwhat he was, a healthy young athlete who would be equally at home onspringy heather whether carrying an easel or a gun.

  Tollemache had caught Mere Pitou's arm when she announced the message ofthe bell.

  "One more outburst like that, my fairy, and we'll have to carry you upthe remainder of t
he hill," he grinned.

  "_Mon Dieu!_ but I'm glad I made the best part of the pilgrimage in atrain and a carriage!" twittered Madame. "Yet, though I dropped, I hadto warn the little ones that the dear saint knew they were coming to hershrine."

  "Is that what it means?"

  "What else? A pity you are not a good Catholic, Monsieur Tollemache, oryou might be granted a favor today."

  "Oh, come now! That's no way to convert a black Presbyterian. Tell methat Sainte Barbe will get my next picture crowned by the Academy, andI'll fall on my knees with fervor."

  "_Tcha!_ Even a saint cannot obtain what Heaven does not allow."

  Ingersoll laughed. "Mere Pitou may lose her breath; but she never losesher wit," he said. "Now I put forward a much more modest request. Mostexcellent Sainte Barbe, send me some mad dealer who will empty my studioat a thousand francs a canvas!"

  Yvonne heard these words; yet, be it noted, she asked the saint to makeher father happy, not prosperous. It was then that the bell rang asecond time.

  "_Tiens!_" exclaimed Madame Pitou. "The saint replies!"

  "Like every magician, you achieve your effect by the simplest ofcontrivances--when one peeps behind the scenes," said Ingersoll. "OldPere Jean, custodian of the chapel, who will meet us at the summit,keeps a boy on guard, so that all good pilgrims may be put in the rightframe of mind by hearing the bell accidentally. The boy saw our girlsfirst, and then spied us. Hence the double tolling. Now, Madame, crushme! I can see lightning in your eye."

  "Mark my words, Monsieur Ingersoll, the saint will send that dealer, andhe will certainly be mad, since none but a lunatic would pay a thousandfrancs for any picture of yours."

  Ingersoll seized her free arm. "Run her up, for Heaven's sake,Tollemache!" he cried in English. "Her tongue has scarified me every dayfor eighteen years, and age cannot wither, nor custom stale, itsinfinite variety."

  Laughing, struggling, crying brokenly that _ces Americains_ would be thedeath of her, and tripping along the while with surprising lightness offoot,--for Mere Pitou had been noted as the best dancer of the gavotteat any _pardon_ held within a radius of ten miles of Pont Aven,--she washurried to the waiting girls.

  * * * * *

  "Ah, that rascal of a father of yours!" she wheezed to Yvonne, relapsinginto the Breton language, as was her invariable habit when excited,either in anger or mirth. "And this other overgrown imp! When they'rebeaten in argument they try to kill me. _Gars!_ A nice lot I'm bringingto the holy chapel!"

  "Never mind, _chere maman_," said the girl, taking her father's place,and clasping the plump arm affectionately. "When we descend the otherside of the hill you'll have them at your mercy. Then you can tell themwhat you really think of them."

  "They know now. Artists, indeed! Acrobats, I call them! Making sport ofa poor old woman! Not that I'm astonished at anything Monsieur Ingersolldoes. Everybody admits that he is touched here," and she dabbed a fatfinger at her glistening forehead, "or he wouldn't bury himself alive ina Brittany village, because he really has talent. But that hulkingMonsieur Tollemache ought to be showing off his agility before you girlsinstead of lugging me up the Pilgrims' Way. _Cre nom!_ When littleBarbe's father--Heaven rest his soul!--met me here one fete day beforewe were married, he wouldn't rest till he had swung himself round SainteBarbe's tower by the shepherd's hooks; and me screaming in fright whileI watched him, though bursting with pride all the time, since the othergirls were well aware that he was only doing it to find out if I caredwhether or not he fell and broke his neck."

  "What's that?" inquired Tollemache; for Madame Pitou was speaking Frenchagain. "Where is this tower?"

  "Oh, you'll shiver when you see it! You Americans eat so much beef thatyou can never leave the earth. That's why Frenchmen fly while you walk."

  "Or run, my cabbage. You must admit that we can run?"

  "The good Lord gave you those long legs for some purpose, no doubt."

  "Well, _Maman_, we offered our petitions. What did you ask for?" saidYvonne.

  Madame flung up her hands with a woebegone cry. "May the dear saintforgive me, but the monkey chatter of those two infidels put my prayerclean out of my head!"

  "Gee whizz!" exclaimed Tollemache. "This time I'll run in earnest, orI'll catch it hot and strong," and he made off.

  "No harm done," said Ingersoll. "Mere Pitou has all she wants in thisworld, and will enter the next with pious confidence."

  For once the elderly dame kept a still tongue. Like every Breton woman,she was deeply religious, and rather given to superstition, and themomentary lapse that led her to forget a carefully thought out plea forsaintly aid caused a pang of real distress.

  Yvonne guessed the truth, and sympathized with her. "Father dear," shesaid, "promise now, this minute, that you will bring us all here againnext year on Barbe's fete day, and that we shall fall on our knees whileMadame offers her prayer, or she will be unhappy all day."

  Ingersoll read correctly the look of reproach his daughter shot at him,and was genuinely sorry. He too understood the tribulation that hadbefallen his friend.

  "By Jove!" he said instantly, "better than that, though I make thepromise willingly, Madame Pitou and I must do immediate penance for oursins--she for neglect and I for irreverence--by going halfway down thehill again and toiling back."

  He was by no means surprised when Mere Pitou took at his word. Away theywent, and Yvonne did not fail to grasp the meaning of her father'ssignificant glance toward the belfry as he turned on his heel. On noaccount was the boy to miss the arrival of yet a third batch ofpilgrims!

  * * * * *

  Now, the belfry stood on the farther edge of a tiny plateau of rock andgorse that crowned the summit. On the left was Pere Jean's cottage withits stable and weaving shed. Among the trees in the background rose thediminutive spire of Sainte Barbe's chapel, and it was evident that theslope of the hill was precipitous, because spire and treetops, thoughquite near, were almost on a level with the girl's eyes. From the sideof the belfry a paved causeway led to a quaintly carved andweather-beaten open-air altar, and long flights of broad steps fellthence on one hand to the door of the chapel and on the other to thefirst of many paths piercing the dense woodland of the hillside.

  Pere Jean, a sprightly and wizened old peasant dressed in white linen,was already chatting with Tollemache and the other two girls. The boy,thinking the avenue was clear, had gone to the cottage for a tray ofpicture postcards.

  Yvonne followed, and sent him to his lookout with definite instructions."Make no mistake," she said, "and we'll buy at least a franc's worth ofcards later." Then she rejoined her friends.

  "Yes, I've seen it done," Pere Jean was saying. "Sailors were the best;but the shepherds were brave lads too. Nowadays it is forbidden by theprefect."

  "Why? Were there many accidents?" inquired Tollemache.

  "Oh, yes, a few. You see, it seems easy enough at the commencement; butsometimes the heart failed when the body was swinging over the cliff. Itis fatal to look down."

  Madeleine's shoulders were bent over a low parapet. Yvonne, leaning onher, saw that the caretaker was talking of the feat that Barbe's fatherhad accomplished many years earlier. The altar at the end of thecauseway was shielded by a squat, square tower. In its walls, about sixfeet above the causeway, some iron rings were visible. They hung loose;but their staples were imbedded in the masonry, and each ring was abouta yard apart from its fellow. A mass of rock gave ready access to thefirst pair; but thenceforth the venturesome athlete who essayed thepassage must swing himself in air, gripping a ring alternately in theleft hand and in both hands.

  On one side, the left, the tower sank only to the level of the pathbeneath; but a glance over the opposite parapet revealed an awesomeabyss.

  Madeleine shuddered when she felt Yvonne's hand. "To think that menshould be so foolish as to risk their lives in such a way!" shemurmured.

  "I suppose that anyone who let go was
killed?" said Tollemache.

  "_Mais, non, M'sieu'_," Pere Jean assured him. "The blessed saint wouldnot permit that. No one was ever killed, I'm told. But the prefect hasforbidden it these twenty years."

  "Are the rings in good condition?"

  "Certainly, M'sieu'. Where now does one get such iron as was made inthose days?"

  "Let's test some of 'em, anyhow," said Tollemache, and before thehorrified girls realized what he meant he had leaped from parapet torock, and was clinging to a couple of rings.

  * * * * *

  "Oh, Monsieur Tollemache!" screamed Barbe.

  "Please come back, Monsieur!" cried Madeleine.

  "Hi! Hi! It is forbidden by the prefect!" bellowed Pere Jean.

  But Yvonne, though angry and pallid with fright, only said, "Don't bestupid, Lorry. I should never have thought you would show off in thatsilly manner."

  She spoke in English. Tollemache, gazing down at her in a comical,sidelong way, answered in the same language.

  "I'm not showing off. Do you think that any Frenchman ever lived whocould climb where I couldn't?"

  "No one said a word about you."

  "Yes. Mere Pitou said I'd shiver when I saw the place. Now watch meshiver!"

  He swung outward. Even in her distress, Yvonne noticed that he took astrong pull at each ring before trusting his whole weight to it. But shemade no further protest, nor uttered a sound; though Madeleine and Barbewere screaming frantically, and the old caretaker's voice cracked withreiteration of the prefect's commands.

  Tollemache was soon out of sight round the angle of the tower, and thetwo Breton girls ran to the other parapet to watch for his reappearance.Not so Yvonne. The dread notion possessed her that she might seeLaurence Tollemache dashed to his death on those cruel rocks some sixtyfeet beneath, and she knew that, once witnessed, the horrific spectaclewould never leave her vision. So she waited spellbound in front of thealtar, and gazed mutely at some tawdry images that stood there. Couldthey help, these grotesque caricatures of heavenly beings, carved andgilded wooden blocks with curiously inane eyes and thick lips? Hersenses seemed to be atrophied. She was aware of a feeling of dullannoyance when the boy, attracted by the screams and Pere Jean's shrillvehemence, came running from his post, and thus would surely miss thesecond appearance of her father and Mere Pitou. But the young peasantwas quick witted. He had seen the "pilgrims" turn and resume the ascent;so he dashed into the belfry, because he could thence obtain a rare viewof an event that he had often heard of but never seen,--a man swinginghimself round Sainte Barbe's tower by the shepherd's hooks, such beingthe local name of the series of rings.

  So the bell tolled its deep, strong notes, and simultaneously Madeleineand Barbe shrieked in a wilder pitch of frenzy. Tollemache had justswung round the second angle of the tower. His left hand had caught theoutermost ring on that side; but the staple yielded, and he vanished.

  "Ah, _mon Dieu!_ he has fallen!" cried Barbe, collapsing forthwith in afaint.

  Fortunately Madeleine saved her from a nasty tumble on the rough stones;though she herself was nearly distraught with terror. Pere Jean racedoff down the right-hand flight of steps, moving with remarkable celerityfor so old a man, and gasping in his panic:

  "_Mille diables!_ What will _M'sieu' le Prefet_ say now?"

  Evidently the caretaker feared lest Sainte Barbe's miraculous powersshould not survive so severe a test. Yet his faith was justified. Ashout was heard from the tower's hidden face.

  "_Je m'en fiche de ca!_" was the cry. "I'm right as a nail. I've got toreturn the way I came--that's all."

  Yvonne listened as one in a dream. She saw her father and Madame Pitoucrossing the plateau. For an instant her eyes dwelt on the features ofthe frightened boy peering through an embrasure in the belfry. From somepoint beneath came the broken ejaculations of Pere Jean, who was craninghis neck from some precarious perch on the edge of the precipice tocatch a glimpse of the mad American's shattered body. Madeleine wassobbing hysterically over the prostrate Barbe, and endeavoring withnervous fingers to undo the stiff linen coif round the unconsciousgirl's throat.

  Now, after leaving the cottage, Yvonne had looked at the chapel, theentrance to which lay at the foot of the left-hand stairway. Thesanctuary had a belfry of its own, a narrow, circular tower, piercedwith lancet windows beneath a pointed roof. These windows were almost ona line with and about ten feet distant from the top of the wall of rockleft by the excavation that provided a site for the building. Throughone of them, which faced the causeway, could be seen a tiny white statueof Sainte Barbe. No more striking position could have been chosen forit. The image was impressive by reason of its very unexpectedness.

  Hardly conscious of her action, Yvonne turned to the saint now to invokeher help. She murmured an incoherent prayer, and as she gazed distraughtat the Madonna-like figure, so calm, so watchful in its aery, she heardthe rhythmic clank of iron as the rings moved in their sockets. Onefleeting glance over the left parapet revealed Tollemache in the act ofswinging himself to the pair of rings above the rock that gave foothold.

  Again he peered down at her, twisting his head awkwardly for thepurpose. "Nothing much to it," he laughed, jerking out breathless words."Of course it was a bit of a twister when that ring came away; but----"

  He was safe. Yvonne deigned him no further heed. She hurried to Barbe'sside.

  * * * * *

  "For goodness' sake help me to shake her and slap her hands!" she criedto Madeleine. "Monsieur Tollemache has spoiled the day for us already,and Mere Pitou will be ill if she thinks Barbe is hurt."

  Barbe, vigorous little village girl, soon yielded to drastic treatment,and was eager as either of her friends to conceal from her mother thefact that she had fainted.

  Tollemache, feeling rather sheepish in face of Yvonne's quiet scorn,strolled to the top of the steps down which Pere Jean had scuttled. Theold man's voice reached him in despairing appeal.

  "M'sieu'! Speak, if you are alive! Speak, _pour l'amour de Dieu_!"

  "Hello there!" he cried. "What's the row about? Here I am!"

  Pere Jean gazed up with bulging eyes, and himself nearly fell over theprecipice. "Ah, _Dieu merci_!" he quavered. "But, M'sieu', didn't youhear me telling you that the prefect----"

  "What's the matter?" broke in Ingersoll's quiet tones. "You all look asif you had seen a daylight ghost."

  "I behaved like a vain idiot," explained Tollemache, seeing that none ofthe girls was minded to answer. "I tried to climb round the tower bythose rings, and scared Yvonne and the others rather badly."

  "How far did you go?"

  "Oh, I was on the last lap; but a ring gave way."

  Ingersoll knew the place of old, and needed no elaborate essay on thedanger Tollemache had escaped. His grave manner betokened the depth ofhis annoyance.

  "What happened then?" he said. "I went back, of course."

  "Where did the ring break?"

  "It didn't break. I pulled the staple out. That one--you see where thegap is."

  Ingersoll leaned over the parapet. A glance sufficed.

  "You crossed the valley face of the tower twice?" he said.

  "Couldn't help myself, old sport."

  "Then you described yourself with marvelous accuracy,--a vain idiot,indeed!"

  "Dash it all!" protested Tollemache. "I've only done the same as scoresof Frenchmen."

  "Many of whom lost their lives. You had a pretty close call. Lorry, I'mashamed of you!"

  Mere Pitou added to Tollemache's discomfiture by the biting comment thather man had got round the tower, whereas _he_ had failed.

  * * * * *

  Altogether it was a somewhat depressed party that was shown round thequaint old chapel of the patroness of armorers and artillerists by PereJean, who had lost a good deal of his smiling bonhomie, and eyedTollemache fearfully, evidently suspecting him of harboring somefantastic design of d
ropping from the gallery to the floor, or leapingfrom the chapel roof to the cliff.

  Their spirits revived, however, as they descended a steep path to SainteBarbe's well. Every chapel of Saint Barbara has, or ought to have, awell, and that at Le Faouet (three syllables, please, and sound thefinal T when you are in Brittany) is specially famous for its propheticproperties in affairs of the heart. Thus, a spring bubbles into a troughsurmounted by a canopy and image of the saint. In the center of thetrough, beneath two feet of limpid water, the spring rises through anirregular orifice, roughly four inches square, and all unmarried youngpeople who visit the shrine try to drop pins into the hole. Success atthe first effort means that the fortunate aspirant for matrimony willeither be married within a year or receive a favorable offer.

  So, after luncheon, which had been carried by a boy from the village onthe hill opposite the Pilgrims' Way, the girls produced a supply ofpins. Barbe was the first to try her luck. Three pins wriggled to thefloor of the well; but a fourth disappeared, and Mere Pitou took theomen seriously.

  "You will be married when you are twenty-one, _ma petite_," she said,"and quite soon enough, too. Then your troubles will begin."

  Madeleine failed six times, and gave up in a huff. Yvonne's second pinvanished.

  "_O, la, la!_" cried Mere Pitou, still deeply interested in thisconsultation of the fates. "Mark my words, you'll refuse the first andtake the second!"

  The old lady darted a quick look at Ingersoll; but he was smiling. Hehad schooled himself for an ordeal, and his expression did not change.Tollemache, too, created a diversion by seizing a pin, holding it highabove the surface of the water, whereas each of the girls had soughtapparently to lessen the distance as much as possible, and dropping itout of sight straight away.

  "Look at that!" he crowed. "My girl will say _snap_ as soon as I say_snip_. Here's her engagement ring!"

  Plunging his left hand into a pocket, he brought to light the ring andstaple torn from Sainte Barbe's tower. When hanging with one hand to thelast hold-fast, on the wall overlooking sixty feet of sheer precipice,he had calmly pocketed the ring that proved treacherous.

  Evidently Laurence Tollemache was a young man who might be trusted notto lose his head in an emergency.

  Mere Pitou was not to be persuaded to tempt fortune, and Ingersoll, whowas sketching the well rapidly and most effectively, was left alone,because Barbe, who would have called him to come in his turn, was biddensharply by her mother to mind her own business.

  * * * * *

  Tollemache and Yvonne climbed the rocky path together when they beganthe return journey to Le Faouet. In the rays of the afternoon sun therough granite boulders sparkled as though they were studded withinnumerable small diamonds.

  "Haven't you forgiven me yet, Yvonne?" he said, noticing her distraitair.

  She almost started, so far away were her thoughts. "Oh, let us forgetthat stupidity," she replied. "I was thinking of something verydifferent. Tell me, Lorry, has my father ever spoken to you of mymother?"

  "No," he said.

  "Do you know where she is buried?"

  "No."

  She sighed. Her light-hearted companion's sudden taciturnity was notlost on her. Neither Madame Pitou, Ingersoll's friend and landladyduring eighteen years, nor Tollemache, who worked with him daily, couldread his eyes like Yvonne, and she knew he was acting a part when hesmiled because Sainte Barbe's well announced that she would be marriedat the second asking. And the odd thing was that she had endeavored todrop the first pin so that it would not fall into the fateful space.None but she herself had noted how it plunged slantwise through thewater as though drawn by a lodestone.

  Even Tollemache nursed a grievance against the well's divination. "Isay," he broke in, "that pin proposition is all nonsense, don't youthink?"

  For some occult reason she refused to answer as he hoped she would. "Younever can tell," she said. "Mere Pitou believes in it, and she has had along experience of life's vagaries."

  From some distance came Madeleine's plaint. "Just imagine! Six times! Insix years I shall be twenty-five. I don't credit a word of it--so there!At the last _pardon_ Peridot danced with me all the afternoon."

  Even little Barbe was not satisfied. "Mama said the other day," sheconfided, "that I might be married before I was twenty."

  Ingersoll and Mere Pitou, bringing up the rear, were silent; Madamebecause this hill also was steep, and Ingersoll because of thoughts thatcame unbidden. In fact, Sainte Barbe had perplexed some of her pilgrims.