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diff --git a/old/60175-0.txt b/old/60175-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9b607e6..0000000 --- a/old/60175-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7721 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of By the Good Sainte Anne, by Anna Chapin Ray - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: By the Good Sainte Anne - -Author: Anna Chapin Ray - -Release Date: August 26, 2019 [EBook #60175] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY THE GOOD SAINTE ANNE *** - - - - -Produced by David T. Jones, Al Haines, Larry Harrison & -the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at -http://www.pgdpcanada.net - - - - - - - - - - -[Illustration: "He opened his eyes for the - slightest possible glance at - the broad black hat above him." ] - - - - - By the Good Sainte Anne - - - _A STORY OF MODERN QUEBEC_ - - BY - - - ANNA CHAPIN RAY - - Author of “Teddy, Her Book,” “Phebe, Her Profession,” - “Ursula’s Freshman,” “Nathalie’s Chum,” - “The Dominant Strain,” etc. - - - Toronto - The Musson Book Co. - _Limited_ - - - - - _Copyright, 1904_, - BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. - - _All rights reserved_ - - Published April, 1904 - - - - - TO - - S. M. P. M. - - - BRITISHER - - IN TOKEN OF AMITY - - - - - _By the Good Sainte Anne_ - - - CHAPTER ONE - -Petulantly Nancy Howard cast aside her letter and buried her chin in her -cupped palms. - -“Oh, the woes of having a learned father!” she sighed. “Here is Joe’s -letter, telling me how everything is starting up at home; and here am I, -Nancy Howard, buried in this picturesque, polyglot wilderness, just -because my sire feels himself moved to take a vacation from medicine in -order to study history at first hand! I wish he would let his stupid -monograph go to the winds, and take me home in time for the Leighton’s -dinner, next week.” - -She picked up the scattered sheets of her letter and ran them over once -more, holding up her left hand, as she did so, to cut off the dazzling -sunshine from the white paper. It was a pretty hand, slim, strong and -tapering. Prettier still was her head, erect and crowned with piles of -reddish-brown hair. It was not without apparent reason that Nancy Howard -had been, for the past year, one of the most popular girls of her social -circle at home. - -At the third page, her brows wrinkled thoughtfully. Dropping the loose -sheets into her lap, she once more fell to musing aloud. - -“It does seem to me that Joe is seeing a good deal of Persis Routh. I -never thought he liked her especially well. But anyway I am out of all -the fun. Space isn’t the only thing that makes distance. Up here, I am -at least two hundred years away from home. How long have I been here? -Eight, no, nine days.” Suddenly she laughed. “At least, it has been a -period of fasting and meditation. I believe I’ll count it as a novena to -the Good Sainte Anne. Perhaps she will manufacture a miracle in my -behalf, and get up a little excitement for me. Fancy an excitement in -this place!” - -“B’jour, mam’selle.” - -Nancy turned alertly, as the voice broke in upon her musings. - -“Bon jour, madame,” she answered, with a painstaking French which laid -careful stress upon each silent letter and separated the words into an -equal number of distinct sentences. At present, it was her latest -linguistic accomplishment, and she aired it with manifest pride. - -Pausing midway over the stile, the old woman brushed her face with the -apron that hung above her tucked-up skirt. - -“Why not you go to the church?” she asked. - -Nancy breathed a sigh of relief, as the talk lapsed into her mother -tongue. Like most Americans, she preferred that conversational -eccentricities should be entirely upon the other side, and she -questioned how far she could go upon the strength of her own three -words. Nevertheless, she framed her reply on the idioms of her -companion. - -“Why for should I go?” - -The woman set down her pail of water on the top step of the stile. Then -she planted herself just below it, with her coarse boots resting on the -crisp brown turf. - -“We go to church, all the days,” she admonished Nancy sternly. - -The girl smiled irrepressibly. - -“So I have noticed,” she said, half under her breath. Then she added -hastily, “But we do not.” - -“Are you Catholique?” - -Nancy shook her head. - -“Too bad! But surely you can pray in any church.” - -This time, Nancy felt a rebuke. - -“Yes,” she assented; “but I am not used to going, every day.” - -“No. No?” The second _no_ was plainly interrogative. “But the Good -Sainte Anne only does those miracle to them that pray without ceasing.” - -The girl faced about sharply. - -“Madame Gagnier, have you ever seen a miracle?” - -The wide flat hat nodded assent. - -“A real, true miracle?” - -“Yes, so many.” - -“Hh! I’d like to see one.” - -Two keen old eyes peered up at her from beneath the wide hat. - -“Mam’selle does not believe?” - -There was reproach in the accent; but the girl answered undauntedly,— - -“Not one bit. I’ll wait till I have seen one.” - -Madame Gagnier shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly. - -“How shall you see, having no eyes at all?” - -Nancy’s brown eyes snapped in defiant contradiction of the slight put -upon them. It was no part of her plan to be drawn into theological -discussion. However, theological discussion being forced upon her, she -had no mind to give way. Motherless from her childhood, Nancy Howard had -never been trained in the purely feminine grace of suppressing her -opinions. - -“I not only have eyes; but I have a little common sense,” she answered -aggressively. - -The next instant, she was conscious of a sudden wave of contrition. -Madame Gagnier unclasped her wrinkled hands and crossed herself -devoutly. - -“Then may the Good Sainte Anne open your eyes!” she responded, with -gentle simplicity. “You carry her name. Pray that she take you under her -protection, and work this miracle in your behalf. She is all-gracious, -and her goodness has not any limits at all.” - -Impulsively the girl rose from her seat on the ground, crossed to the -stile and dropped down on its lowest step. - -“Madame Gagnier, I was very rude,” she said, with equal simplicity. - -Then silence dropped over them, the silence of the country and of the -past. Forgetful of the letter she had let slip to the ground, forgetful -of the coarse, mannish boots beside her own dainty ties, the girl -allowed her gaze to wander back and forth across the view. It had grown -so familiar to her during the last nine days, interminable days to the -energetic, society-loving American girl who had chafed at her exile from -the early gayeties of the awakening season in town. - -Fifty feet away stood her temporary prison, a long, narrow stone house -coated with shining white plaster. Above its single story, the pointed -roof shot up sharply, broken by two dormer windows and topped with a -chimney at either end, the one of stone, the other of brick. The palings -in front of the house were white, dotted with their dark green posts; -but, the house once passed, the neat palings promptly degenerated into a -post-and-rail fence guiltless of paint and crossed with a stile at -important strategic points connected with the barn. For one hundred feet -in front of the house, the smooth-cropped lawn rolled gently downward. -Then it dropped sharply from the crest of the bluff in an almost -perpendicular grassy wall reaching down to the single long street of -Beaupré, two hundred feet below. The crest of the bluff was dotted by an -occasional farmhouse, each reached by its zigzag trail up the slope; -but, in the street beneath, the houses met in two continuous, unbroken -lines, parallel to that other continuous line of the mighty river. The -river was mud-colored, to-day; and the turf about her was browned by -early frosts; but the Isle of Orleans lay blue in the middle distance, -and, far to the north, Cap Tourmente rested in a purple haze. At her -feet, the white sail of a stray fishing-boat caught the sunlight and -tossed it back to her, and, nearer still, the gray twin spires of Sainte -Anne-de-Beaupré rose in the clear October air. - -“Mother of the Holy Virgin, protector of sailors, healer of the -faithful, patron saint of the New France.” Dame Gagnier was rehearsing -the attributes of the saint to herself in her own harsh _patois_. - -The girl interrupted her ruthlessly. - -“What an enormous train!” she exclaimed. - -“Eh?” - -Nancy pointed to the long line of cars crawling up to the station beside -the church. - -“Long train. Many cars,” she explained slowly. - -Dame Gagnier’s eyes followed the pointing finger. - -“Yes. It is a pilgrimage,” she answered. - -The girl scrambled to her feet. - -“Really? A pilgrimage! I thought it was too late in the season. Do you -suppose there will be a miracle?” she questioned eagerly. - -Under the wide hat, the eyes lighted and the wrinkled lips puckered into -a smile. - -“Mam’selle does not believe in those miracle,” Madame Gagnier reminded -her. - -Nancy’s shoulders shaped themselves into an American travesty of the -inimitable French shrug. - -“I am always open to conviction,” she announced calmly. - -“Eh?” - -“I am going to see for myself.” - -“Mam’selle will go to church?” - -“Yes; that is, if you are sure it is a pilgrimage.” - -“What else?” In her turn, Madame Gagnier pointed to the train whence a -stream of humanity was pouring into the square courtyard of the -Basilica. - -“You are sure? I don’t want to break my neck for nothing, scrambling -down your ancestral driveway.” - -“Eh?” - -For the thousandth time during the past nine days, Nancy felt an -unreasoning rage against the deliberate monosyllable that checked her -whimsical talk. In time, it becomes annoying to be obliged to explain -all one’s figures of speech. Abruptly she pulled herself up and began -again. - -“Unless you are sure it is a pilgrimage, I do not wish to walk down the -steep slope,” she amended. - -“Yes. It is a pilgrimage from Lake Saint John. My son told me. It is the -last pilgrimage of the year.” - -Nancy clasped her hands in rapture. - -“Glory be!” she breathed fervently. “I am in great luck, to-day, for -they said that it was too late in the year to expect any more of them. -The Good Sainte Anne is working in my behalf. Now, if she will only -produce a miracle, I’ll be quite content. Good by, Madame Gagnier!” - -Madame Gagnier nodded, as she looked after the alert, erect figure. - -“Mam’selle does not believe in those miracle,” she said calmly. “Well, -she shall see.” - -The girl stooped to pick up her letters. Then swiftly she crossed the -lawn and entered the house. Outside a closed door, she paused and tapped -softly. - -“Come in.” The answering voice was impersonal, abstracted. - -Pushing open the door, Nancy entered the little sitting-room and crossed -to the desk by the sunny window looking out on the river. - -“Daddy dear, are you going to come with me, for an hour or two?” - -The figure before the desk lost its scholarly abstraction and came back -to the present. The student of antiquity had changed to the adoring -father of a most modern sort of American girl; and his eyes, leaving the -musty ecclesiastical records, brightened with a wholly worldly pride in -his pretty daughter. - -“What now?” - -“A pilgrimage. A great, big pilgrimage, the last one of the year,” she -said eagerly. “I’m going down to see it. Surely you’ll go, too.” - -He shook his head. - -“Oh, do,” she urged. “You ought to see it, as a matter of history. It is -worth more than tons of old records, this seeing middle-age miracles -happening in these prosy modern days.” - -“Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré isn’t Lourdes, Nancy,” he cautioned her. - -“No; but the guide-books say it is only second to Lourdes,” she answered -undauntedly. “Anyway, I want to see what is happening. Won’t you come, -really, daddy?” - -His eyes twinkled, as they looked up into her animated face. - -“Nancy, I am sixty-five years old, and that trail up the hill is worse -than the Matterhorn. If you follow the zigzags, you walk ten miles in -order to accomplish one hundred feet; if you strike out across country, -you have to wriggle up on all fours. I know, for I have tried it. It -isn’t a seemly thing for a man of my years to come crawling home, flat -on his stomach.” - -She laughed, as she stood drumming idly on the table. - -“I am sorry. It is so much more fun to have somebody to play with. -Still, I shall go, even if I must go alone.” - -She started towards the door; then turned to face him, as he added -hastily,— - -“And, if you see Père Félicien, ask him when I can examine those last -records by Monseigneur Laval. I shall be here, tell him, about ten days -longer.” - -Nancy’s face fell. - -“Ten mortal days! Oh, daddy!” - -“Yes, I shall need as much time as that. I prefer to finish up my work -here, before I go on to Quebec.” - -“And how long do you mean to stay in Quebec?” she asked. - -The minor cadence in her tone escaped her father’s ears. He patted the -papers before him caressingly. - -“It is impossible to tell. Four or five weeks, I should say. That ought -to give me time to gather my materials.” - -Nancy loved her gay home life; but she also loved her father. She tossed -him a kiss as she left the room; nevertheless, the smile that -accompanied the kiss was rather forlorn and wavering. Once outside the -door, however, she freed her mind. - -“Ten more days here, and a month in that hole of a Quebec! It will be -Thanksgiving, before we get home. Think of all the fun I shall be -losing!” She pinned on her hat with a series of energetic pries and -pushes. Then she added fervently, “Oh, Good Sainte Anne, do get up the -greatest miracle of all, and produce something or somebody that shall -add a little variety to my existence! I’ll give fifty cents to the souls -in purgatory, if you’ll only be good enough to rescue my soul from this -absolute boredom of boredoms.” - -Surely, never was more unorthodox prayer directed upward from any -shrine. However, the Good Sainte Anne chanced to be in a propitious -mood, that day. - - - CHAPTER TWO - -Mr. Cecil Barth was unfeignedly low in his mind, that morning. The -causes were various and sundry. - -First of all, Quebec was a bore. In the second place, the only people to -whom he had brought letters of introduction had most inconsiderately -migrated to Vancouver, and, fresh from his English university, he was -facing the prospect of a solitary winter before he could go out into -ranch life in the spring. A Britisher of sorts, it had not appeared to -him to be necessary to inform himself in advance regarding the -conditions, climatic and social, of the new country to which he was -going. Now, too late, he recognized his mistake. A third grievance lay -in the non-arrival of the English mail, that morning; and the fourth and -most fatal of all lurked in the kindly efforts of his table companion to -draw him into the conversation. To his mind, there was no reason that -the swarthy, black-browed little Frenchman at his elbow should offer him -any comments upon the state of the weather. The Frenchman had promptly -retired from the talk; but his dark eyes had lighted mirthfully, as they -had met the asphalt-like stare of his neighbor’s eyeglasses. Adolphe St. -Jacques possessed his own fair share of a sense of humor; and Cecil -Barth was a new element in his experience. - -“Monsieur has swallowed something stiff that does not agree with him,” -he observed blandly to his fellow student across the table; and Barth, -whose French was of Paris, not of Canada, was totally at a loss to -account for their merriment. - -For the past week, the group of students and the chatter of their -Canadian _patois_ had been anathema to him. He understood not a word of -their talk, and consequently, with the extreme sensitiveness which too -often accompanies extreme egotism, he imagined that it related solely to -himself. In vain he tried to avoid their hours for meals. Rising -betimes, he met them at the hurried early breakfast which betokened an -eight o’clock lecture. The next morning, dreary loitering in his room -only brought him into the midst of the deliberate meal which was the -joyous prerogative of their more leisurely days. Barth liked The Maple -Leaf absolutely; but he hated the students of his own table with a -cordial and perfect hatred. - -Dropped from the Allan Line steamer, one bright September morning, as a -matter of course he had been driven up through the gray old town to the -Chateau Frontenac. A week at the Chateau had been quite enough for him. -To his mind, its luxurious rooms had been altogether too American. Too -American, also, were its inhabitants. He shrank from the obvious brides -in their new tailor gowns and their evident absorption in their -companions. He resented those others who, more elderly or more detached, -roused themselves from their absorption to bestow a friendly word on the -solitary young Englishman. Their clothes, their accent, and, worst of -all, their manners betrayed their alien birth. No self-respecting woman, -bride or no bride, ever wore such dainty shoes. No man of education ever -stigmatized an innocent babe as _cunning_. And there was no, absolutely -no, excuse for the familiar greetings bestowed upon himself by complete -strangers. - -“Americans!” quoth Mr. Cecil Barth. “Oh, rather!” - -And, next morning, he went in search of another hostelry. - -He found it at The Maple Leaf, just across the Place d’Armes. Fate -denied to him the privilege of sleeping in the quaint little _pension_ -whose roof was sanctified by having once sheltered his compatriot, -Dickens; he could only take his meals there, and hunt for a room -outside. At noon, he came to dinner, too exhausted by his fruitless -search to care whether or not the students were at the table, or on it, -or even under it. Go back to the Chateau he would not; but he began to -fear lest the only alternative lay in a tent pitched on the terrace in -the lee of the Citadel and, in that wilderness, he questioned whether -anything so modern as a tent could be bought. - -After dinner, the Lady of The Maple Leaf took his affairs in hand. She -possessed the two essentials, a kindly heart and a sense of humor. She -had seen stray Britishers before; she had a keen perception of the -artistic fitness of things and, by twilight, Mr. Cecil Barth was sitting -impotently upon his boxes in the third-floor front room of the town -house of the Duke of Kent. He had very little notion of the way to -proceed about unpacking himself. Nevertheless, as he put on his glasses -and stared at the panelled shutters of his ducal casement, he felt more -at peace with the world than he had done for two long weeks. - -In after years, he never saw fit to divulge the details of his -unpacking. It accomplished itself chiefly by the simple method of his -tossing out on the floor whatever things lay above any desired object, -of leaving those things on the floor until he became weary of tangling -his feet in them, then of stowing them away in any convenient corner -that offered itself. By this simple method, however, he had contrived to -gain space enough to permit of his tramping up and down the floor, and -it was there that he had been taking petulant exercise, that bright -October morning. - -At last he halted at the window and stood looking down into the street -beneath. The Duke of Kent’s house has the distinction, rare in Saint -Louis Street, of standing well back within its own grounds, and, from -his window, Barth could watch the leisurely procession passing to and -fro on the wooden sidewalks which separated the gray stone buildings -from the paler gray stripe of asphalt between. Even at that early hour, -it was a variegated procession. Tailor-made girls mingled with -black-gowned nuns, soldiers from the Citadel, swaggering jauntily along, -jostled a brown-cowled Franciscan friar or a portly citizen with his -omnipresent umbrella, while now and then Barth caught sight of a -scarlet-barred khaki uniform, or of the white serge robe and -dove-colored cloak of a sister from the new convent out on the Grand -Allée. - -Barth had travelled before; he had seen many cities; nevertheless, he -acknowledged the charm of this varied humanity, so long as it remained -safely at his feet. Then he glanced diagonally across the road to the -Montcalm headquarters, and discovered the patch of sunshine that lay -over its pointed gables. - -“Jolly sort of day!” he observed to himself. “I believe I’ll try to see -something or other.” - -With a swift forgiveness for the past days of scurrying clouds, of the -woes of moving, even of students and Americans, he turned away from the -window, caught up his hat, stick and gloves, and ran lightly down the -staircase. Once out in the street, he strayed past the English -cathedral, past the gray old front of the Basilica, turned to his left, -then turned again and wandered aimlessly down Palace Hill. Ten minutes -later, he stopped beside an electric train and watched the crowd -scrambling into its cars. - -“Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré,” he read from the label in a rear window. “What -can be the attraction there? Oh, I know; it’s that American Lourdes -place. How awfully American to go to its miracles by electricity! I -believe I’ll go, too. It might be rather interesting to see what an -American miracle is like.” - -Ticket in hand, he boarded the train, already moving out of the station. -He had some difficulty in finding a seat to his liking, since a man of -finical habits objects to having two bundle-laden habitants in the same -seat with himself. However, by the time he was sliding along under the -bluff at Beauport, with the Saint Lawrence glistening on his right, he -decided that the morning was ideal for a country ride. By the time the -train halted opposite the Falls of Montmorency, he had forgotten the -ubiquitous students at his table, and, as he entered into the fertile -valley of L’Ange Gardien, he came to the conclusion that chance had led -him wisely. Just how wisely, as yet he was in ignorance. - -It was still long before midday when the train drew up at Sainte Anne -station, and Barth stepped out upon the platform. Then in amazement he -halted to look about him. Close at hand, an arched gateway led into a -broad square garden, bounded by gravel walks and bordered on two sides -by a row of little shrines, aged and weatherbeaten. On the third side -stood the church of the Good Sainte Anne, its twin gray towers rising -sharply against the blue October sky and flanking the gilded statue of -the saint poised on the point of the middle roof. Around the four sides -of the courtyard there slowly filed a motley procession of humanity, -here a cripple, there one racked by some mental agony, the sick in mind -and body, simple-hearted and trusting, each bringing his secret grief to -lay at the feet of the Good Sainte Anne. Mass was already over, and the -procession had formed again to march to the shrine and to the holy -altar. - -Barth’s eyes roved over the shabby procession, over the faces, dull and -heavy, or alert with trust; then he turned to the rose-arched figure -borne on the shoulders of the chanting priests, and his blood throbbed -in his veins, as he listened to their rich, sonorous voices. - -“A pilgrimage!” he ejaculated to himself. “And now for a miracle! May -the saint be propitious, for once in a way!” - -Following hard on the heels of the crowd, he pushed his way through one -of the wide doors, gave a disdainful glance at the huge racks of -crutches and braces left by long generations of pious pilgrims, looked -up at the vaulted roof, forward to the huge statue of Sainte Anne -half-way up the middle aisle, and drew a deep breath of content. The -next minute, he choked, as the stifling atmosphere of the place swept -into his throat and nostrils. - -“Oh, by George!” said Mr. Cecil Barth. - -However, once there, he resolved to see the spectacle to the end. -Furthermore, Barth was artist to the core of his being, and those -sonorous voices, now ringing down from the organ loft above, could atone -for much stale air. A step at a time, he edged forward cautiously and -took his place not far from the altar rail. - -The students of his table would have found it hard to recognize the -haughty young Englishman in the man who knelt there, looking with -pitiful eyes at the forlorn stream of humanity that flowed past him. Was -it all worth while: the weary fastings and masses, the scrimping of tiny -incomes for the sake of the journey and of the offering at the shrine, -the faith and hope, and the infinite, childlike trust, all to culminate -in the moment of kneeling at the carved altar rail, of feeling the -sacred relic touched to one’s lips and to the plague-spot of body or of -soul? And then they were brushed aside with the monotonous brushing of -the relic across the folded napkin in the left hand of the priest. For -better or worse, the pilgrimage was over. It was the turn of the next -man. Brushed aside, he rose from his knees to give place to the next, -and yet the next. - -Just once the monotony was broken. A worn pair of crutches dropped at -the feet of the statue; a worn old man, white to his lips, staggered -forward, knelt and received the healing touch on lip and thigh and knee. -Then, with every nerve tense, he struggled to his feet and made his -toilsome way to the outer world, while the priests recorded one more -miracle wrought by the Good Sainte Anne. Then the monotony fell again, -and became seemingly interminable. - -At length Barth could endure it no longer. Rising impatiently, he forced -his way down the crowded aisle and came out into the air once more. -After the dim, dark church and the choking cloud of the incense, the -rush of sunshiny ozone struck him in the face like a lash, and -involuntarily he raised his head and squared his shoulders to meet it. -He loitered along the gravel pathway, watching the habitants who, their -pious pilgrimage over, were opening their crumpled valises and spreading -out their luncheons in the cloisters to the south of the church. Then, -tossing a coin into the tin cup of the blind beggar in the gateway, he -came out of the court and crossed the road to the little hillside chapel -built of the seventeenth-century materials of the old church of Sainte -Anne. But the spell of the place was still upon him; in his mind’s eye, -he yet saw the endless line of pilgrims, bowing and rising in unbroken -succession. With unseeing gaze, he stared at the rows of carts heaped -with their ecclesiastical trinkets, at the stray figures lifting -themselves heavenward by means of the Scala Sancta Chapel, and at the -line of white farmhouses poised high on the bluff beyond. Then, yielding -to the spell of the kneeling figures, of the incense-filled air and of -the chanting voices, he turned and hurried back again to the church. - -By the time he reached the steps once more, the procession was flowing -swiftly outward, and the little platform at the doorway was crowded with -excited figures. Barth tried this door and then that, in a futile -endeavor to regain his old place near the altar rail; but again and -again he was forced backward to the very verge of the steps. Then an -unduly tall habitant elbowed Barth’s glasses from his nose. He bent down -to pick them up, was jostled rudely from behind, lost his balance and -rolled down the steps where he landed in a dusty, ignominious heap in -the midst of a knot of women. - -During one swift second, it seemed to Barth that the vast statue of -Sainte Anne had tumbled from the roof, to dazzle his eyes with her -gilding and to crush his body with her weight. Then the dancing lights -and the shooting pains ended in darkness and peace. - - - CHAPTER THREE - -Out of darkness and peace, Mr. Cecil Barth drifted slowly backward to -the consciousness of the glare of the sunshine, of a babel of foreign -tongues and of two points of physical anguish, centering respectively in -a bruised head and a sprained ankle. He closed his eyes again; but he -was unable to close his ears. Still too weak to make any effort upon his -own behalf, he wondered vaguely when those clacking tongues would cease, -and their owners begin to do something for his relief. - -“Stand out of the way, please. He needs air.” - -The words were English; the accent unmistakably American. Barth pinched -his lids together in a sturdy determination not to manifest any interest -in his alien champion. For that reason, he missed the imperative gesture -which explained the words to the crowd; he missed the anxious, kindly -light in Nancy Howard’s eyes, as she elbowed her way to his side and -bent down over him. - -“You are hurt?” she questioned briefly. - -Even in this strait, Barth remained true to his training. He opened his -eyes for the slightest possible glance at the broad black hat above him. -Then he shut them languidly once more. - -“Rather!” he answered, with equal brevity. - -The corners of Nancy’s mouth twitched ominously. It was not thus that -her ministrations were wont to be received. Accustomed to fulsome -gratitude, the absolute indifference of this stranger both amused and -piqued her. - -“You are American?” she asked. - -This time, Barth’s eyes remained open. - -“English,” he returned laconically. - -Again Nancy’s lips twitched. - -“I beg your pardon. I might have known,” she answered, with a feigned -contrition whose irony escaped her companion. “But you speak French?” - -“Not this kind. I shall have to leave it to you.” In spite of the -racking pain in his ankle, Barth was gaining energy to rebel at his -short sight and the loss of his glasses. It would have been interesting -to get a good look into the face of this intrepid young woman who had -come to his rescue. - -She received his last statement a little blankly. - -“But I don’t speak any French of any kind,” she confessed. - -“How unusual!” Barth murmured, with vague courtesy. - -Nancy rose from her knees and dusted off her skirt. - -“I don’t see why. I’ve never been abroad, and we don’t habitually speak -French at home,” she answered a little resentfully. - -Barth made no reply. All the energy he could spare from bearing the pain -of his ankle was devoted to the study of how he could get himself out of -his present position. His gravelly resting-place was uncomfortable, and -it appeared to him that his foot was swelling to most unseemly -dimensions. Nevertheless, he had no intention of throwing himself upon -the mercy of a strange American girl of unknown years and ancestry. -Raising himself on his elbow, he addressed the bystanders in the best -Parisian French at his command. The bystanders stared back at him -uncomprehendingly. - -Standing beside him, Nancy saw his dilemma, saw, too, the bluish ring -about his lips. Her amused resentment gave place to pity. - -“I am afraid you are badly hurt,” she said gently. - -“Yes.” - -“Where is it?” - -“My ankle.” - -“Sprained?” - -“Broken, I am afraid.” Barth’s answers still were brief; but now it was -the brevity of utter meekness, not of arrogance. - -“Oh, I hope not!” she exclaimed. “You can’t walk at all?” - -Gritting his teeth together, Barth struggled up into a sitting posture. - -“I am afraid not. It was foolish to faint; but I hit my head as I went -down, and the blow knocked me out.” - -As he spoke, he bent forward and tried to reach the laces of his shoe. -With a swift gesture, Nancy forestalled him and deftly slipped the shoe -from the swollen ankle. Her quick eye caught the fact that few of her -friends at home could match the quality of the stocking within. Then her -glance roved to his necktie, and she smiled approvingly to herself. In -her girlish mind, Barth would pass muster. - -Nevertheless, there was nothing especially heroic about him, as he sat -there on the gravel with his ankle clasped in his hands and the color -rising and dying in his cheeks. A man barely above the middle height, -spare and sinewy and without an ounce of extra flesh, Cecil Barth was in -no way remarkable. His features were good, his hair was tawny yellow, -and his near-sighted eyes were clear and blue. - -“Where can I find a surgeon?” he asked, after a little pause. - -“I don’t know, unless—” Nancy hesitated; then she added directly, “My -father is a doctor.” - -He nodded. - -“And speaks English?” he queried. - -Nancy bravely suppressed her laughter. - -“New York English,” she replied gravely. - -And Barth answered with perfect good faith,— - -“That will do. They are not so very different, and we can understand -each other quite well, I dare say. Where is he?” - -The girl pointed towards the crest of the bluff. - -“He is at the Gagnier farm.” - -“May I trouble you to send some one for him?” Barth asked courteously. - -She glanced about her at the group of French faces, and she shook her -head. - -“I never can make them understand,” she objected. “I’d better go, -myself.” - -But, in his turn, Barth offered an objection. - -“Oh, don’t go and leave me,” he urged a little piteously. “I might go -off again, you know.” - -“But you just said you couldn’t walk?” Nancy responded, in some -surprise, for, granted that the stranger was able to remove himself, she -could see no reason whatsoever that he should not feel free to do so. - -“Oh, no. I can’t walk a step. My foot is broken,” he answered rather -testily, as a fresh twinge ran through his ankle. - -“Then how can you go off, I’d like to know.” - -Barth stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then a light broke -in upon his brain. - -“Oh, I see. You don’t understand. I meant that I might faint away,” he -explained. - -Nancy’s reply struck him as being a trifle unsympathetic. - -“Well, what if you did?” she demanded. “I can’t be in two places at -once, and these people won’t eat you up. Make up your mind that you -won’t faint, and then you probably won’t.” - -Barth peered up at her uneasily. - -“Are you—are you a Christian Scientist?” he asked. - -Nancy’s laugh rang out gayly. - -“Didn’t I say my father was a doctor?” she reminded him. “Now please do -lie still and save your strength, and I’ll see what I can do about it -all.” - -She was gone from his side only for a moment. Then she came flying back, -flushed and eager. - -“Such luck!” she said. “Right at the foot of the hill, I found Père -Gagnier and the cabbage cart, just coming home from market. He will be -here in a minute, and he talks French. Some of these people will carry -you to the cart, and you can be driven right up to the door. That will -take so much less time than the sending for my father; and, besides, -even if he came down, you couldn’t be left lying here on the gravel walk -for an indefinite period. You would be arrested for blocking the path of -the pilgrims, to say nothing of having relays of cripples crutching -themselves along over you.” - -In her relief at having solved the situation, she paid no heed to the -stream of nonsense coming from her lips. Barth’s stare recalled her to -self-consciousness. - -“No, really,” he answered stiffly. - -“Well, daddy?” - -At the question, Dr. Howard looked up. Still a little breathless and -dishevelled by her hurried scramble up the hill, Nancy stood before him, -anxiety in her eyes and a laugh on her lips. - -“How is the British Lion?” - -“Most uncommonly disagreeable,” the doctor answered, with unwonted -energy. - -“So I found out; but he has occasional lucid intervals. How is his -ankle?” - -“Bad. For his own sake, I wish he had broken it outright. Nancy, what am -I going to do with the fellow?” - -Nancy dropped down into a chair, and smoothed her ruffled hair into some -semblance of order. - -“Cure him,” she answered nonchalantly. - -The doctor shrugged his shoulders. - -“It takes two to make a cure.” - -“Then hire Père Gagnier to cart him back to Sainte Anne again, and let -her try her finger upon him.” - -In spite of himself, the doctor laughed. Then he grew grave again. - -“It’s not altogether funny, Nancy. You have unloaded a white elephant on -my hands, and I can’t see what to do with it.” - -“How do you mean?” she questioned, for she was quick to read the anxiety -in her father’s tone. - -“The man speaks no French that these people here can understand, and he -is going to be helpless for a few days. How is he going to have proper -care?” - -“Send him in to Quebec. There must be a hospital there.” - -“I won’t take the risk of moving him; not for ten days, at least.” - -“Hm!” Nancy’s falling inflection was thoughtful. “And you came here to -get away from all professional worry. Daddy, it’s a shame! I ought never -to have had him brought here.” - -Pausing in his tramp up and down the room, Dr. Howard rested his hand on -the pile of auburn hair. - -“It was all you could do, Nancy. One must take responsibilities as they -come.” - -Nancy broke the pause that followed. Rising, she pinned on her hat. - -“Where are you going?” - -“To the station. I’ll telegraph to Quebec for a nurse. We can have one -out here by night. Good by, daddy; and don’t let the Lion eat you up.” - -More than an hour later, she came toiling up the hill and dropped -wearily down on the steps. - -“No use, daddy! I have exhausted every chance, and there’s not a nurse -to be had. Quebec appears to be in the throes of an epidemic. However, I -have made up my mind what to do next.” - -“What now?” - -“I shall turn nurse.” - -“Nancy, you can’t!” - -“I must. You’re not strong enough, and such a curiosity as this man -mustn’t be left to die alone. Besides, it will be fun, and Mother -Gagnier will help me.” - -“But you don’t know anything about nursing.” - -“I won’t kill him. You can coach me behind the scenes, and I shall -scramble through, some way or other. Besides, the Good Sainte Anne will -help me. I’ve just been tipping her, for the way she has come to my -relief. Only this morning, I promised her half a dollar, if she would -deign to give me a little excitement.” Then the girl turned still more -directly to her father, and looked up at him with wayward, mocking, -tender eyes. “Daddy dear, this isn’t the only emergency we have met, -side by side. Mother Gagnier shall do all the rougher part; the rest you -shall leave to me. Truly, have you ever known me to fail you at the -wrong time?” - -And the doctor answered, with perfect truthfulness,— - -“No, Nancy; I never have.” - - - CHAPTER FOUR - -Out on the end of the long pier that juts far into the Saint Lawrence, -Nancy Howard was idly tossing scraps of paper into the choppy surface of -the mighty river. Behind her, Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré was rapidly putting -on her winter guise. The last pilgrimage ended, the good saint lost no -time in packing up her relics for safe keeping, until the next year’s -pilgrims should turn their faces towards her shrine. Nancy had returned -from the telegraph office, two days before, past rows of dismantled -booths and of shops whose proprietors were already taking inventory of -their remaining possessions. The heaped-up missals and rosaries made -little impression upon her; but even her stalwart Protestantism rebelled -at sight of the bare-armed priestess who was scrubbing a plaster Virgin -with suds and a nailbrush. Nancy would have preferred the more -impersonal cleansing administered by the garden hose. - -Even Nancy Howard had been forced to admit that the Good Sainte Anne had -earned her money. Excitement had not been lacking, during the past two -days. It was one thing to come to her father’s aid with an offer to play -nurse; it was quite another matter to give several hours of each day to -the whims of a man who was as unused to pain as he was to the thwarting -of his plans. Nancy had expected a playful bit of masquerade. She -promptly discovered that she was doomed to work as she had never worked -before. She had informed Barth that it was her custom to leave all -financial arrangements in the hands of the doctor. She had no idea what -value it might have pleased her father to set upon her services. She had -a very distinct idea, however, that, whatever the value, she fully -earned it. Arrogant and desponding, masterful and peevish by turns, -Cecil Barth was no easy patient. Accustomed all his life to being -served, he now had less notion than ever of lifting a finger to serve -himself. Moreover, Nancy Howard had a rooted objection to being smoked -at. Her objection was based upon chivalry, not antipathy to nicotine; -nevertheless, it was active and permanent. She only regained her lost -poise, when she tried to reduce to systematic orthography the -unspellable accent of her patient, most of all that prolonged _Oh-er, -raahther!_ which appeared to represent his superlative degree of -comparison. - -“Oh, nurse?” - -Barth’s voice met her on the threshold, as, capped with a bit of lawn -and covered with an ample apron from the wardrobe of Madame Gagnier, she -opened the door of the invalid’s room. - -“Yes, sir.” - -“I thought you would never come back.” - -“You have needed something?” - -“Yes. The room is too warm, and I think it is time for the rubbing.” - -“Not for fifteen minutes,” Nancy answered calmly. “I told you I would be -back in time.” - -“Yes. But it is so warm here.” - -“Why didn’t you call Madame Gagnier to open a window?” - -“Because she is so very clumsy. Please open it now.” - -Nancy repressed a sudden longing to cross the room on her heels. Barth -was sitting up, that day; but the lines around his lips and the -brilliant patch of scarlet on either cheek betrayed the fact that the -past two days had worn upon him. - -“Is your foot aching now?” she asked, as she returned to her seat. - -“Yes, intensely. Do you suppose that doctor knows how to treat it?” - -Nancy’s eyes flashed. - -“He ought to,” she answered shortly. - -Barth turned argumentative. - -“It is not a question of obligation; it is a mere matter of training and -experience,” he observed. - -“He is the best doctor in the city,” Nancy persisted. - -“In Quebec?” - -“No; at home.” - -For the dozenth time since his catastrophe, Barth regretted the loss of -his glasses. Nancy’s tone betrayed her irritation. Unable to see her -face distinctly, he was also unable to fathom the cause of her -displeasure. He peered at her dubiously for a moment; then he dropped -back in his chair. - -“Very likely,” he agreed languidly. “Now will you please move the -foot-rest a very little to the right?” - -“So?” - -“Yes. Thank you, nurse.” - -“Is there anything else?” - -He pointed to the table at his elbow. - -“My pipe, please; and then if you wouldn’t mind reading aloud for a -time.” - -Nancy did mind acutely; but she took up the book with an outward showing -of indifference, while Barth composed himself to smoke and doze at his -pleasure. - -For a long hour, Nancy read on and on. Now and then she glanced out at -the sunshiny lawn beneath the window; now and then she looked up at her -patient, wondering if he would never bid her cease. In spite of her -rebellion at her captivity, however, she was forced to admit that Barth -had his redeeming traits. His faults were of race and training; his -virtues were his own and wholly likable. Moreover, in all essential -points, he was a gentleman to the very core of his soul and the marrow -of his bones. - -“‘Still of more moment than all these cures, are the graces which God -has given, and continues to give every day, through the intercession of -good Sainte Anne, to many a sinner for conversion to better life.’” -Nancy’s quiet contralto voice died away, and M. Morel’s old story -dropped from her hands. Barth’s eyes were closed, and she decided that -he had dropped to sleep; but his voice showed her mistake. - -“It’s a queer old story. Do you believe it all, nurse?” - -A sudden spice of mischief came into Nancy’s tone. - -“Yes, and no. I doubt the epilepsy and paralysis; it remains to be seen -about the conversions to a better life.” - -“I suppose one could tell by following up the cases,” Barth said -thoughtfully. - -“Certainly.” Nancy’s accent was incisive. “I accept nothing on trust.” - -Barth took a prolonged pull at his pipe. - -“But it’s not so easy to follow up cases two hundred and fifty years -old,” he suggested. - -Nancy laughed. - -“No; I’ll content myself with the modern ones.” - -“Do you suppose there are any modern ones?” - -“Oh, yes. The priests claim that there are several new cases, every -year.” - -“And you can get on the track of them?” he asked, with a sudden show of -interest. - -“Surely. I have my eye on one of them now,” Nancy responded gravely. - -“A Sainte Anne miracle?” - -“Yes.” - -“Tell me where it is?” he urged. - -She shook her head. - -“I can’t. It concerns somebody besides myself,” she replied, with a -decision which he felt it would be useless to question. - -There was a prolonged pause. It was Barth who broke it. - -“Strange we never heard of the place at home!” he said reflectively. - -“How long since you came here?” Nancy asked, rather indifferently. - -“Two weeks.” - -“And you like it?” - -“For a change. It is a change from the ’Varsity, though.” - -“Which was your university?” she inquired, less from any interest in the -answer than because she could see that her patient was in an -autobiographical frame of mind, and even her brief experience of mankind -had taught her to let such moods have their way. - -“Kings, at Cambridge. I was at Eton before that.” - -“What sent you out here?” - -“Ranching. My brother went in for the army, and we didn’t care to have -two of a kind in the same family.” - -“It might be a little monotonous,” she assented gravely. “But where is -your ranch?” - -“I haven’t any yet. I am stopping in Quebec for the winter, and I shall -go out, early in the spring.” - -“Is Quebec a pleasant place?” she asked, as she crossed the room to the -window and stood looking out at the river beneath. - -“It’s rather charming, only I don’t know anybody there.” - -“Why don’t you get acquainted, then?” - -“How can I? I brought some letters; but the people have moved to -Vancouver.” - -“Yes; but they aren’t the only people in Quebec.” - -“Of course not; but I don’t know any of the others.” - -“But you can?” - -“How?” Barth queried blankly. - -“Why, talk to them, do the things they do—oh, just get acquainted; -that’s all,” the girl answered, with some impatience. - -He raised his brows inquiringly. It was not the first time that Nancy -had been annoyed by the expression. - -“Talk to people, before you have been introduced to them?” - -“Yes. Why not?” - -“No reason; only it’s not our way.” - -“Whose way?” - -“The way we English people do.” - -“Oh, what a Britisher you are!” she said, with a momentary impatience -that led her to forget her self-imposed rôle as hireling. - -His lips straightened. - -“Certainly. Why not?” he asked quietly. - -Baffled, she attempted another line of attack. - -“But you were never introduced to me,” she told him. - -“Oh, no.” - -“And you talk to me.” - -“Yes. But that is different.” - -“How different?” she demanded. - -“You are my nurse.” - -Her color came hotly. - -“I wasn’t at first.” - -Too late she repented her rashness, as Mr. Cecil Barth made languid -answer,— - -“No. Still, if I remember clearly, it was you who first spoke to me. -Oh,—nurse!” - -But the door banged sharply, and Barth found himself alone with his -ankle and with his thoughts. - -“Where is the nurse?” he asked Dr. Howard, a long hour later. - -“She went out for a walk.” - -“Again?” - -“Yes. Have you needed her?” - -“Not exactly; but—” Barth hesitated. Then, like the honest Englishman -he was, he went straight to the point. “The fact is, doctor, I am afraid -I said something that vexed her. I didn’t mean to; I really had no idea -of annoying her. I should dislike to hurt her feelings, for she has been -very good to me.” - -For the first time in their acquaintance, Dr. Howard could confess to a -liking for his patient. Nevertheless, he only nodded curtly, as he -said,— - -“You couldn’t have had a better or more loyal nurse.” - -According to her custom, Nancy remained on duty, that evening, until -nine o’clock. Then she moved softly up and down, setting the room in -order for the night. Barth had been lying quiet, staring idly up at the -mammoth shadow of Madame Gagnier, rocking to and fro just outside the -door. Then, as Nancy paused beside him, he turned to face her. - -“Can I do anything more, sir?” she asked, with the gentle seriousness -which marked her moods now and then. - -“Nothing, thank you. I am quite comfortable.” - -“I am glad. I hope you may have a quiet night.” - -“Thank you. I hope I may. You have been very good to me, nurse, and—” -his speech hurried itself a little; “I appreciate it. As I understand, -your wa—salary is paid through the doctor; but perhaps some little -thing that—” - -His gesture was too swift and sure to be avoided. The next instant, -Nancy Howard found herself stalking out of the room with blazing cheeks -and with a shining golden guinea clasped in the hot palm of her left -hand. - - - CHAPTER FIVE - -At her window looking out upon the Ring in the ancient Place d’Armes and -upon the Chateau beyond, Nancy Howard stood idly drumming on the pane. -Under its gray October sky, the gray-walled city of Quebec had appeared -most alluring to her, that morning; but she had turned her back upon its -invitation and had resolutely busied herself in settling her own -possessions and those of her father in the rooms which had been waiting -for them at The Maple Leaf. - -Nancy had left Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré with scant regret, the night -before. She had spent numberless interesting hours in the society of Mr. -Cecil Barth. He had piqued her, antagonized her and occasionally had -even compelled her to like him in spite of herself. However, the whole -episode had been forced upon her. Now that it was ended, she was glad to -dismiss it entirely into the past, and she had not thought it necessary -to inform Barth that she too expected to pass some weeks in Quebec. -There was scant chance of their meeting again, and Nancy had imagined -that she had parted from him without regret. - -On his side, Barth had been at no pains to conceal his regrets. As Dr. -Howard had reminded him, Nancy had been a most loyal nurse; and the -young Englishman took it quite as a matter of course that his attendant -should be a girl of brains and breeding as well. He had heard much of -the American college girl, and he promptly pigeonholed Nancy with others -of that class, although in fact she had been educated by her father and -polished by a year or so spent at a famous old school on the Hudson. -Barth admired Nancy’s brains, her common sense and her alert deftness. -To his mind, these qualities in part atoned for her independence and her -hot-headed Americanism; but only in part. Her society was often restful, -but never cloying; and Barth, now able to hobble about his room, peered -mournfully out of his window after his departing nurse with feelings -akin to those of a youngster suddenly deprived of his best mechanical -toy. Bereft of his nurse, he took to his pipe, smoked himself into -lethargy, and emerged from his lethargy so cross that Madame Gagnier, -lumbering into the room to settle him for the night, fled from his -presence with her cap awry and her checked pinafore pressed to her aged -eyes. - -Dusk had fallen, when Nancy and her father drove up the steep slope of -Palace Hill, passed the Basilica and stopped at the low yellow door of -The Maple Leaf. Of the city Nancy saw but little. Of The Maple Leaf, -glaring with electric lights, she saw much and, even at the first -glance, she assured herself that that much was wholly to her liking. It -was not alone the curved ceiling of the entrance hallway, nor the cheery -little dining-room where the four tables and the huge mahogany sideboard -struggled not to elbow each other in their close quarters; nor yet the -deep window-seats of the rooms with their French casements and their -panelled shutters. It was the nameless flavor of the place, pervading -all things and beautifying all things, the flavor of nothing in the -world but of old Quebec. The Chateau might exist anywhere; The Maple -Leaf could have existed nowhere outside of the ancient city wall. - -“Don’t you love it, daddy?” Nancy urged for the third time, as they came -up from their late supper. - -“It seems very central,” the doctor assented tranquilly. “Of course, it -is a great advantage for me to be so near Laval. I only hope you won’t -be lonely here, Nancy.” - -She laughed scornfully. - -“Lonely! After Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré!” she protested. - -“The town is often a good deal more lonely than the country,” he assured -her. - -But Nancy, whose eyes had not been entirely busy with the furniture of -the dining-room, shook her head. Then she went into her own room, to -fall asleep and, quite as a matter of course, to dream that Mr. Cecil -Barth, Union Jack in hand, was chasing her around and around the little -fountain she could hear plashing down in the Ring. - -All the next morning, Nancy was busy in their two adjoining rooms, -hanging up her gowns and trying to devise an arrangement which should -keep her father’s shirts from too close connection with his bottle of -ink. Now and then she halted beside his windows which looked down on a -gray-walled courtyard where an aged habitant sat on a chopping-block and -peeled potatoes without end. Occasionally she wandered back to her own -room, and stood gazing out at the Champlain statue by the northern end -of the terrace and at the pointed copper roofs of the huge Chateau. Then -she went on brushing her father’s clothes, and sorting out her own -tangle of gloves and belts and the kindred trifles that add a touch of -chaos to even the most orderly of trunks. At last, her work done, she -smoothed her hair, tweaked her gown into position and, without a glance -into the long mirror of her wardrobe, she ran down to the dining-room in -search of her father. - -She found him the sole occupant of a table near the door, and the other -tables were absolutely deserted. As she went back to her room, Nancy was -forced to admit that the meal had been a bit dull. A father and daughter -who have been constant companions for years, are unable to produce an -unfailing stream of brilliant table talk; and Dr. Howard, tired with the -effort of getting his bearings in a strange library, was even more -taciturn than was his wont. Accordingly, it was in a mood dangerously -akin to homesickness that Nancy left the empty dining-room and returned -to her equally empty bedroom. Once inside the door, she made the -mortifying discovery that her lashes were wet; and, with a swift -realization of the ignominy of her mood, she caught up her hat and coat, -and started out to explore the city on her own account. - -As she dressed herself for supper, two nights later, Nancy confessed to -herself that the past two days were the dreariest days she had ever -spent. Totally engrossed in his historical research, her father spent -his daytime hours in poring over the manuscripts in Laval library, his -evening in rearranging and copying his hurried notes. Left entirely to -herself, Nancy discovered the truth of his words, that a town could be -far more lonely than the country. At Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré, every one -had had a word of greeting for the bright-faced American girl; here it -seemed to her that she had no more personality than one of the pawns on -a chessboard. She walked the streets by the hour at a time, straying at -random from church to church, loitering on the terrace, or tramping -swiftly out the Grand Allée far past the Franciscan convent and the -tollgate beyond. The tourist season was almost ended. A few honeymoon -couples were still straying blissfully about the ramparts; but, for the -most part, Quebec had come back from summer quarters on lake and river, -and was settling into winter routine. Nancy watched it all with wide, -interested, dissatisfied eyes. The show delighted her; but, as at all -other shows, she felt the need of some companion whose elbow she could -joggle in moments of extreme excitement. - -As a part of the show, The Maple Leaf had gratified her whole artistic -sense. Humanly speaking, she had found it a bit disappointing. Manœuvre -as she would, she could never succeed in finding the dining-room full. -There seemed to be something utterly inconsequent in the way in which -the boarders took their meals, now late, now early, and now apparently -not at all. She had been told that there were forty of them; but, so far -as she could discover, six constituted a quorum, and the meal was served -accordingly. Once only, the entire quorum had occurred at her own table. -Four fresh-faced elderly Frenchmen had marched into the room in -procession, and had planted themselves opposite Nancy and her father. -Dr. Howard read French, but spoke it not at all. Nancy felt that her own -three words would prove inadequate. Accordingly, after one international -deadlock over the possession of the salt, silence had fallen. When she -left the table, Nancy felt that she had gained a full perception of the -viewpoint of a deaf mute. - -It was with a spirit of absolute desperation that Nancy flung open the -door of her wardrobe, that night. Humanity failing, she would take -refuge in clothes. At Sainte Anne, she had lived chiefly in a short -skirt and blouse; at The Maple Leaf, she had been waiting to discover -the prevailing habits of dress. Now she told herself that two women at a -time could not make a habit; and, furthermore, she assured herself that -she cared nothing for local habits anyway. The wardrobe held three new -gowns, obviously of New York manufacture. Nancy did not hesitate. With -unerring instinct, she chose the most ornate one of the three, which -also chanced to be the one which was most becoming. - -And so it came to pass that Reginald Brock, pausing in the hall to take -off his overcoat, whistled softly to himself as he caught a glimpse of a -pale gown of dusky blue and a head capped with heavy coils of tawny -hair. The coat slid off in a hurry, Brock gave one hurried look into the -tiny mirror of the rack; then, his honest Canadian face beaming with -content, he came striding into the dining-room and dropped into his -place at Nancy’s side, with a friendly nod of greeting. - - - CHAPTER SIX - -Half an hour later, Brock followed Nancy into the parlor. The Lady of -The Maple Leaf was at his side, and Nancy had an instinctive feeling -that they were in search of her. It was the Lady who spoke. - -“Mr. Brock has just been talking to your father in the hall,” she said; -“and now he has asked me to give him a ceremonious introduction to you. -As a rule, we aren’t so ceremonious, here in Canada; but Mr. Brock -insists upon it that the butter-knife and the mustard are no proper -basis for acquaintance.” - -“I have learned a thing or two from Johnny Bull,” the tall Canadian -added, as he placed himself in the window-seat beside Nancy’s chair. - -“Johnny Bull?” - -“Yes, an English fellow that has been stopping here for a few days. -Where is he? I haven’t seen him for a week,” he added, turning to the -Lady. - -“He is ill; I expect him back in a day or two. Please excuse me. I hear -the telephone.” And she hurried out of the room. - -Nancy looked after her regretfully. Even during the three days she had -been there, she had gained a sound liking for the blithe little woman, -always busy, never hurried, and invariably at leisure for a friendly -word with any or all of her great family of boarders. Brock’s glance -followed that of Nancy. - -“Yes, she is a remarkable woman,” he assented gravely to her unspoken -words. For an instant, his keen gray eyes met Nancy’s eyes, steadily, -yet with no look of boldness. Then his tone changed. “But about Johnny -Bull. He is a revelation to the house, the son of a stiff-backed -generation. He was here for a week, and left us all trying to get his -accent and to imitate his manners.” - -“And what became of him?” - -“Gone. The Lady says he is ill. I hope we didn’t make him so. Have you -been here long, Miss Howard?” - -“Three days.” - -“And have you seen anything at all of Quebec?” - -“Yes, a little. I have been to the Cathedral, and the Basilica, and the -Gray Nunnery, and the Ursuline Convent, and—” - -“You appear to be of an ecclesiastical turn of mind,” Brock suggested, -laughing. - -“So does Quebec,” she retorted. - -He laughed again. - -“Yes, I suppose it does to a stranger; but wait till you have been here -a little longer.” - -“What then?” - -“You’ll forget that a church exists, except the one you go to, on -Sundays.” - -She laughed in her turn. - -“Not unless I grow deaf. The Ursuline bell begins to ring at four, and -the one on the Basilica at half-past. From that time on until midnight, -the bells never stop for one single instant. Under such circumstances, -how can one forget that a church exists?” - -He modified his statement. - -“I mean that you’ll find that Quebec has its worldly side.” - -“Which side?” she queried. “As far as I can discover, the city is -bounded on the north by the Gray Nuns, and on the south by the -Franciscan sisters. Moreover, I met Friar Tuck in the flesh, down in -Saint Sauveur, yesterday.” - -Brock raised his brows questioningly. - -“Do you mean that your explorations have even extended into Saint -Sauveur?” - -“Yes. Still, there is hope for me. I haven’t been to the Citadel yet, -and I keep my guide-book strictly out of sight.” - -“Out of mind, too, I hope,” he advised her. “It holds one error to every -two facts, and the average tourist carries away the impression that -Montgomery was shot in mid-air, like a hawk above a hen-roost. If you -don’t believe me, go and listen to their comments upon his tablet.” - -“Where is it?” - -“Two thirds of the way up Cape Diamond, above Little Champlain Street. -It is labelled as being the spot where Montgomery fell; but, as it is -two hundred feet above the road, one can only infer that he came down -from somewhere aloft. Is this your first visit to Quebec, Miss Howard?” - -“Yes. I have been in Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré for three weeks, though.” - -“Any pilgrimages?” Brock inquired, as he deliberately settled himself in -a less tentative position and crossed his legs. A closer inspection of -Nancy was undermining his vigorous objection to red hair, and he -suddenly determined that the parlor was a much more attractive spot than -he had been wont to suppose. - -“One; but it was a large one.” - -“Miracles, too?” - -Nancy laughed. - -“One and a half,” she responded unexpectedly. - -“Meaning?” Brock questioned. - -“The half miracle was a man who threw away his crutches and crawled off -without them.” - -“And the whole one?” - -Nancy laughed again. Then she said demurely,— - -“That the Good Sainte Anne answered my prayer for a little excitement.” - -“Was that a miracle?” - -She answered question with question. - -“Did you ever stop at Sainte Anne?” - -“Yes, once for the space of two hours. We had all the excitement I cared -for, though.” - -Nancy sat up alertly. - -“Was it a pilgrimage?” - -“No; merely a pig on the track.” - -She nestled back again in the depths of her chair. - -“What anticlimax!” she protested. - -“But you haven’t told me what form your own excitement took,” Brock -reminded her. - -“It was an Englishman.” - -“Oh, we’re used to those things,” he answered. - -“Then I pity you,” she said, with an explosiveness of which she was -swift to repent. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” she added contritely. “Perhaps -you are one of them, yourself.” - -“No; merely a Canadian,” Brock reassured her. - -“Isn’t it the same thing?” - -A mocking light came into Brock’s gray eyes. - -“Not always,” he replied quietly. - -“No.” Nancy’s tone was thoughtful. “I am beginning to find it out. Our -Englishman was unique.” - -“Ours?” - -“Yes, by adoption. The Good Sainte Anne and I took him in charge.” - -“With what success?” - -“It remains to be seen. We did our best for him; but really he was very -preposterous.” - -“What became of him?” - -“Nothing.” - -“Nothing?” - -“No. He is there now; at least, he was there, when we came away.” - -“Was he working out his novena?” - -“No; just mending himself. He fell off from something, his dignity most -likely, and bumped his head and sprained his ankle. I happened to be on -the spot, and rashly admitted that my father was a doctor. Then, before -I really had grasped the situation, the poor man was bundled into a cart -and deposited at our door, half fainting and wholly out of temper.” - -“And then?” - -“And then we couldn’t get a nurse for love or money, and I had to go to -work and take care of him.” - -“Happy man!” Brock observed. “I only hope he appreciated his luck.” - -The corners of Nancy’s mouth curved upwards, and a malicious light came -into her eyes. - -“I think he did. He not only expressed himself as pleased with my -services; but, on one occasion, he gave me a—” - -“A what?” - -“A brand-new guinea.” And Nancy’s laugh rang out so infectiously that -Brock would have joined in it, if she had been discussing the foibles of -himself rather than of the unknown Englishman. - -“How exactly like our Johnny Bull!” he commented, when he found his -voice once more. - -Suddenly Nancy’s puritan conscience asserted itself. - -“Truly, I ought not to laugh about him, Mr. Brock. He had no idea that I -was anything but a servant, and he thought he had every reason to tip -me. He wasn’t bad, only very funny. He really knew a great deal and, -according to his notions, he was a most perfect gentleman. It was only -that our notions clashed sometimes. Yes, daddy, I am coming. Good night, -Mr. Brock.” And she left him staring rather wishfully after the -disappearing train of her dull blue gown. - -It must be confessed that Brock dawdled over his breakfast, the next -morning; but his dawdling was quite in vain. Nancy had taken her own -breakfast long before he appeared, and, by the time Brock had reached -his second cup of coffee, she was walking rapidly along the terrace -towards the Citadel. At the end, she paused for a moment of indecision. -Then, with a glance up at the Union Jack above her head, she slowly -mounted the long flight of steps and came out on the narrow upper -terrace which skirts the outer wall of the fortress. There she paused -again and stood, her arms folded on the railing, looking down on the -picture at her feet. She had been there once before; to-day, however, -the impression was keener, more enjoyable. The change might have come -from the sunshine that lay in yellow splashes over the city beneath; it -might have come in part from the memory of her idle talk with Brock, the -night before. In all that town of antiquity and of strangers, it had -been good to meet some one whose age and viewpoint corresponded to her -own. The direct gaze of Brock’s clear eyes had pleased Nancy. She had -liked his voice, and the unconscious ease with which he carried his -seventy-three inches of height. Too outward seeming, his type was as -unfamiliar as that of the Englishman, and Nancy liked it vastly better. -With Barth, she had been standing on tiptoe, psychologically speaking. -With Brock, she could be her every-day, normal self. - -It had been at Brock’s suggestion that she had gone to the upper -terrace, that morning; and she shook off the memory of his gray eyes in -order to recall the dozen sentences with which he had characterized the -salient points of the view beneath. Then she gave up the attempt. In the -face of all that beauty, it was impossible to fix one’s mind upon mere -questions of geography. At her left, the city sloped down to Saint Roch -and the Charles River beyond, and beyond that again was the long white -village of Beauport straggling along the bluff above the river. At her -right, quarter of a mile beyond the Citadel, were the ruined hillocks of -the old French fortifications; and, on the opposite shore, the town of -Lévis was crested with its trio of forts and dotted with tapering spires -of gray. From one of the piers below, a little steamer was swinging out -into midstream and heading towards the point where Sillery church -overlooks the valley; and, close against the base of the cliff, the -irregular roofs of Champlain Street lay huddled in a long line of -shadow. The river was shadowy, too; but above the city a rift in the -clouds sent the strong sun pouring down over the guns on the eastern -ramparts, over the southern tower of the Basilica and over the spires of -Laval. As she looked, Nancy drew a long breath of sheer delight and, all -at once and for no assignable cause, she decided that she was glad she -had come. Then abruptly she turned her back upon a tall figure crossing -Dufferin Terrace, and walked swiftly away past Cape Diamond and came out -on the Cove Fields beyond. - -When she came in to dinner, she was flushed and animated. As Brock had -predicted, she had discovered that Quebec’s interest did not centre -wholly in its churches. True, there had been a certain disillusion in -finding a portly Englishman playing golf with himself upon the ground -over which the French troops had marched out to face the invading, -conquering foe, in seeing a Martello Tower begirt with clothes-lines and -flapping garments, and in discovering a brand-new rifle factory risen -up, Phœnix-like, from the ashes of the old-time battleground. The -impression was blurred a little; nevertheless, it was there, and Nancy, -as her feet wandered up and down the trail of the armies upon that -thirteenth of September of the brave year ’Fifty-nine, took a curious -satisfaction in the fact that Wolfe, too, had been banned with a head of -red hair. Her own ancestors were English. Perhaps some of their kin had -landed at Sillery Cove, to scale the cliff and die like gentlemen upon -the Plains of Abraham. Her blood flowed more quickly at the thought. In -Nancy’s mind, this was the hour of England. She even forgot the shining -golden guinea that reposed among her extra hairpins. - -Nancy came into the house to find the Lady packing a dinner into an -elaborate system of pails and cosies. The Lady looked up with a smile. - -“Our invalid has come back again,” she explained; “and I am sending his -dinner over to his room.” - - - CHAPTER SEVEN - -“Well,” Brock inquired, three days later; “have you been doing -ecclesiastics again, to-day?” - -Nancy, glancing up from her soup, registered the impression that Brock -supported an extremely good tailor, and that his Sabbath raiment was -becoming to him. - -“Yes. You told me that this was the proper day for it.” - -“Where did you go?” - -“To the Basilica, of course.” - -Brock smiled. - -“True to the tradition of the tourist. By the way, that’s rather a good -alliteration. I think I’ll use it again sometime.” - -Nancy disregarded his rhetorical outburst and pinned her attention to -the fact. - -“Do they always go there?” - -“Yes, to start with. Of course, you didn’t stop there.” - -“But I did. Why not?” - -“Miss Howard, you have neglected your opportunities. The regular tourist -itinerary begins with the Basilica at ten, sneaks out and goes over to -the English Cathedral at eleven and follows on the tail of the band when -it escorts the soldiers home to the Citadel. Then it takes in the -Ursuline Chapel at two, stops to drop a tear over Montcalm’s skull and -then skurries off, on the chance of getting in an extra service before -five-o’clock Benedictions at the Franciscan Convent.” - -“The white chapel with the pale green pillars?” - -“Yes, out on the Grand Allée.” - -“I’ve been there,” she assented. “I love the place.” - -“And then,” Brock continued inexorably; “if you make good time over your -supper, you can just get back to the Basilica at seven.” - -Nancy drew a long breath. - -“But I don’t need to do all that,” she objected. “There are more Sundays -coming.” - -“That makes no difference. Every stranger is bound to gallop through his -first Sunday in Quebec. It is one of the duties of the place. You think -you won’t do it; but, at two o’clock, you’ll have an uneasy -consciousness that those cloistered nuns over at the Ursuline may do -something or other worth seeing. By quarter past two, you’ll be buried -in a haze of mediævalism and incense.” - -“Never!” she protested, with what proved to be strict adherence to -truth. - -“And what about the Basilica?” Brock asked her. - -“Superb!” Nancy’s eyes lighted. “I was there, a few days ago. It was -empty, and it didn’t impress me in the least. It seemed to me a dead -weight of white enamel paint and gold leaf, so heavy that it wasn’t even -cheerful. But to-day—” - -“To-day?” he echoed interrogatively. - -But Nancy made an unexpected digression. - -“Mr. Brock, what is that huge pinky-purple Tam O’Shanter dangling above -the chancel?” - -“Miss Howard, where was your bump of reverence, and where were your -guide-books?” - -“My bump of reverence was fastened down with hatpins, and my guide-books -are buried in the bottom of my trunk.” - -“Since when?” - -“Since I made the discovery that Quebec must be inhaled, not analyzed,” -she responded promptly. - -Brock laid down his knife and fork, and patted his hands together in -mock applause. - -“A subtle distinction. Might I ask whether it applies to the incense?” - -Nancy made a wry face. - -“No. Incense should be a symbol, not a fact. It is destructive to all my -devotional spirit. Still, even in this one week, I have become an -epicure in it. Granted that the wind is in the right direction, I can -recognize the brand at least a block away. I like the kind they use at -the Basilica best. That out at the Franciscan Convent is doubtless -choice; but it is a bit too pungent for my Protestant nose.” Then of a -sudden her face grew grave. “Please don’t think I am making fun of -serious matters, Mr. Brock,” she added. “Even if I do dislike the -incense, I can appreciate the beauty of the service, and I should be -ashamed of myself, if I couldn’t be really and truly reverent in the -midst of all that dignified worship.” - -Brock was no Catholic; he possessed the average devoutness of his age -and epoch. Nevertheless, he liked Nancy’s swift change of mood. All in -all, he liked Nancy extremely, and he was sincerely grateful to the fate -which had given him this attractive table companion. The past three days -had brought them into an excellent understanding and friendship. Trained -in totally different lines, they yet had many a point in common. They -were equally direct, equally frank, equally blest with the saving sense -of humor. In spite of the dainty femininity of all her belongings, Nancy -met Brock with the unconscious simplicity of a growing boy. The manner -was new to Brock, and he found it altogether pleasing. Most of the women -he had met, had contrived to impress upon him that he was expected to -flirt with them. It was obvious that Nancy Howard wished either to be -liked for herself, or to be let alone. - -“Then you enjoyed yourself?” he asked. - -Nancy’s mind went swiftly backward over the morning. Impressionable and -artistic of temperament, she could yet feel the thrill which accompanies -the worship of close-packed, kneeling humanity, still hear the chanting -of the huge antiphonal choirs, the throng of priests in the chancel -answered by the green-sashed seminarians in the organ loft above. The -gorgeous robes of the celebrants, the ascetic face of the young -preacher, and even the motley crowd who, too poor to hire seats in a -church of such wealth and fashion, knelt in a huddled mass of humanity -upon the bare pavement just within the nave: all these were details; but -they helped to fill in a picture of absolute devotion and faith. Nancy -raised her eyes to Brock’s face. - -“I would be willing to pray with a rosary, all my days,” she said -impulsively; “if it would give me the look of some of those people.” - -For a moment, Brock felt, the look was hers. Then she laughed again. - -“Still, I shall always have one regret. Why didn’t you tell me how to -make a procession of myself?” - -“What do you mean?” - -“About the gorgeous man that ushers one in?” - -“I didn’t know there was one.” - -“Mr. Brock!” - -“Miss Howard?” - -“But you ought to.” - -“But I don’t go to the Basilica.” - -“Not always, of course; but surely sometimes.” - -“I was never inside the doors.” - -“I met,” Nancy observed reflectively; “a New York man, last summer, who -had never set eyes on the Washington Arch.” - -“Well?” - -“Well, the two cases seem to me to be about parallel.” - -Brock reddened. Nevertheless, it was impossible to take offence at -Nancy’s downright tone and, the color still in his cheeks, he laughed. - -“I may as well plead guilty. But who is the man?” - -“The New Yorker?” - -“No; the Basilica.” - -“What is he, you’d better say. He appears to be a mixture of an usher, a -tithingman and a glorious personification of the Church Militant. He is -at least six feet tall, and he wears a long blue coat with scarlet -facings and yards of gold lace. That would be impressive enough; but he -gains an added bit of dignity by perambulating himself up the aisles -with a tall, gold-headed sceptre in his hand.” - -“Did he also perambulate you?” - -Nancy’s head moved to and fro in sorrowful negation. - -“No; nobody told me about him, and I lost my chance. I was so -disappointed, too. One doesn’t get a chance, every day in the week, to -be converted into a whole triumphal procession with an ecclesiastical -drum-major at its head.” - -“Most likely it is only a Sunday luxury there,” Brock suggested dryly. -“But what did you do?” - -Nancy’s face lengthened. - -“I disgraced myself,” she confessed. “But how could I know the customs -of the country? I went in good season, and I stood back, meekly waiting -for an usher, until the whole open space around me was full of men, -kneeling on handkerchiefs and newspapers and even on their soft hats. I -began to feel like a Tower of Babel set out in the middle of a village -of huts. I know I never was half so tall before. And still no usher -came. At last, I couldn’t bear it any longer, and I sneaked into an -empty pew, half-way up the aisle.” - -Brock nodded. - -“Oh; but it wasn’t at all the right thing to do. I was barely seated, -when I felt a forefinger poke itself into my shoulder. I looked around, -and there stood a woman in crape, frowning at me as if I were a naughty -child. She whispered something to me. It sounded very stern; but I -couldn’t understand what it was about, so I just smiled at her and -started to move in. But she poked me again, quite viciously, that time, -and pointed out into the aisle. Then I understood her.” - -“And obeyed?” Brock asked, laughing. - -“What else could I do? She was taller than I.” - -“And then?” - -“Then the Good Samaritan appeared.” - -“The gold-laced one?” - -“No; nothing so impressive. He was a little Frenchman who came out of -his pew farther down the aisle, and in the nicest possible English asked -me to go there with him. You’ve no idea how merciful he was to me, nor -how I appreciated it. I was beginning to feel like an outcast, and he -saved my self-respect and returned it to me, unbroken.” - -Brock started to answer; but Dr. Howard had appealed to Nancy for -confirmation of one of his statements. By dint of much effort and at -cost of frequent misunderstandings, the good doctor had established -relations with his neighbor across the table, and the two men had been -toiling through a prolonged conversation. Concerning mere matters of -theory, each fondly imagined that he understood the other perfectly. -Confronted with the problem of the ultimate destination of the -sugar-bowl, they lost their bearings completely, and were forced to -supplement their tongues with the use of their right forefingers. - -Nancy’s acquaintance with the row of Frenchmen was limited to the -careful distribution, at every meal, of exactly two little nods apiece, -one of hail, the other of farewell. Since her first meeting with Brock, -she had been surprised at the chance which had continually brought them -into the dining-room at the same hour; and, in her absorption in his -talk, one or other of the Frenchmen was often half through his -deliberate meal before she remembered to deal out to him his nod of -greeting. She liked them well enough; but, at the present stage of -intercourse, they seemed to her a good deal like well-bred automatons. - -While Nancy talked to her father, Brock eyed her furtively. She wore a -dark green gown, that noon, and her vivid hair was piled high in an -intricate heap of burnished coils. Her hands were bare of rings, her -whole costume void of the dangling ornaments which Brock so keenly -detested; but, close in the hollow of her throat, there blazed one great -opal like a drop of liquid fire. - -So suddenly that he had no time to drop his eyes to his plate, Nancy -turned to him. - -“Mr. Brock, there is my French Samaritan!” she exclaimed softly. - -Brock glanced up at the figure who was moving past the table where they -sat. - -“That? That is St. Jacques,” he said. - -“Who is he?” - -“A law student, over at Laval, and one of the best fellows walking the -earth at the present time,” Brock answered, with the swift enthusiasm -which, as Nancy discovered in the weeks to come, was one of his most -striking characteristics. - -Nancy rested her elbows on the table, with a fine disregard of -appearances. - -“Well, he looks it,” she said impressively. - -“He’s all right.” Brock nodded over his grapes. - -“And lives here?” - -“Eats here; that’s all. The table just back of you is full of Laval men. -They come in relays, twenty of them for the six seats; and Johnny Bull -sits enthroned among them like a mute at the funeral feast. St. Jacques -sits just back of your father. I wonder you haven’t noticed him before.” - -Nancy played aimlessly with her grapes for a minute or two. Then, -turning slightly in her chair, she looked over her shoulder towards the -next table. As she did so, the man who sat exactly at her back, moved by -some sudden impulse, turned at the same instant, and Nancy found herself -staring directly into the unrecognizing eyeglasses of no less a person -than Mr. Cecil Barth. - - - CHAPTER EIGHT - -To adopt the vernacular of the stables, Nancy shied violently, for the -apparition was both unexpected and unwelcome. She rallied swiftly, -however, and, promptly resolving to make the best of a bad matter, she -gave a little nod and smile of recognition. The next instant, both nod -and smile went sliding away from the unresponsive countenance of Mr. -Cecil Barth and focussed themselves with an added touch of cordiality -upon M. St. Jacques, while the young Frenchman bowed low in surprised -pleasure at her friendly greeting. - -Even in her instantaneous glance, Nancy saw that Barth looked worn and -ill; and, with unregenerate spite working in her heart, she told herself -that she was glad of it. She had no idea that, unable to supply himself -with new glasses before his return to the city, Barth had gained -absolutely no conception of the personal appearance of his quondam -nurse. Moreover, as Nancy had neglected to inform him in regard to her -normal pursuits and her future plans, he had spent the last week in -regretfully picturing her, still in cap and pinafore, ministering to the -needs of some invalid Yankee in that vast unknown which he vaguely -termed The States. Accordingly, it came about that the dinner, that -Sunday noon, was finished in hot rage by Nancy, in joyous anticipation -by Adolphe St. Jacques, and in stolid unconcern by Mr. Cecil Barth who -was aware neither of the existence of an emotional crisis, nor of the -fact that to him was due any share of its creation. - -Nancy sat alone in the parlor, after dinner, waiting for her father to -join her, when Barth came into the room. He halted on the threshold long -enough to look her over in detail; then he limped past her and took -possession of the chair beyond her own. As they sat there silent, elbow -to elbow, Nancy was conscious of a wayward longing to remind him that it -was high time for his liniment. However, she refrained. Two could play -at that game of stolid disregard. - -The Lady looked puzzled, as she followed Barth into the room, a few -moments later. Only a day or two before, Nancy, moved by a spirit of -iniquity, had confided to the Lady the whole tale of her connection with -Barth, and the Lady, who already adored Nancy and, moreover, was -discerning enough to see the inherent manliness of Barth, had held her -peace. A charming scene of recognition was bound to follow Barth’s -return to The Maple Leaf. No hint of a mystery to come should take from -the glamor of that pleasant surprise. Barth and Nancy both were -curiously alone; both were aliens, meeting upon neutral soil. Already in -her mind’s eye the Lady foresaw romance and international complications. - -With her bodily eye the Lady saw the elements of her international -complications sitting in close juxtaposition, but with their backs -discreetly turned to an obtuse angle with each other. She made a swift, -but futile, effort to account for the situation. Then she gave Nancy a -merry nod of comprehension, if not of understanding, and passed on to -speak to Barth. - -“You are better, to-day, I hope.” - -“Oh, yes.” - -“I hope you didn’t feel obliged to come over to dinner. It was no -trouble to send your meals to you.” - -“Oh, no. I was tired of stopping in my room.” - -“You look as if you had been having rather a hard time of it,” the Lady -said kindly. - -“Yes. I never supposed an ankle could be so painful. Still, I hope it is -over now.” - -“Then it doesn’t trouble you to walk?” - -“Oh, rather! And, besides, it makes one such an object, you know, and -then people stare. It won’t be long, though, I dare say, before I can -walk without limping.” - -A naughty impulse seized upon the Lady. - -“You were at Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré, you said? And could you get proper -care in so small a place?” - -Over the unconscious head of Mr. Cecil Barth, Nancy shook her fist at -the Lady. Then she fled from the room; but not quickly enough to lose -Barth’s answer,— - -“Oh, so-so; nothing extra, but still quite tolerable. The doctor was -clever; but the nurse, his daughter, was an American, a good-hearted -sort of girl, but rather rude and untrained.” - -All that Sunday afternoon, Nancy cherished her hopes of vengeance. Plan -after plan suggested itself to her fertile brain, was weighed and found -wanting. Planned hostility was totally inadequate; she would leave -everything to chance. Nevertheless, Nancy tarried long at her mirror, -that night; and she went down to supper with her head held high and a -brilliant spot of color in either cheek. As she passed the parlor door, -she saw Barth, book in hand, seated exactly where she had left him, and -she suddenly realized that, rather than endure the short walk to his -room, he had chosen to spend his afternoon in the dreary solitude of a -public sitting-room. For an instant, her heart smote her, and her step -lagged a little; then she remembered the guinea, and recalled Barth’s -words, that noon, and her step quickened once more. - -Brock followed her back to the parlor. - -“Oh, let the Basilica go, to-night,” he urged. - -“But you told me it was a part of my itinerary.” - -“No matter. You haven’t kept up your round, to-day, anyway. Did you do -the Ursulines, this afternoon?” - -“No. I was all ready to go; but something happened that put me in an -unchurchly frame of mind,” Nancy said vindictively. - -“Just as well. It makes people suspicious of your past habits, if you -rush too violently into church-going.” - -“But twice isn’t too violently.” - -“Two is too,” he retorted. “Besides, St. Jacques asked me to ask you if -he might be formally introduced, to-night.” - -Nancy’s face brightened, and her voice lost the little sharp edge it had -taken on with her reference to her encounter with Barth. - -“Of course. Both on account of his courtesy to me, and of your -characterization of him, I shall be delighted to meet him. Where is he?” - -Over in his corner by the window, Barth glanced up from his book. Voices -rarely made any impression upon him; but something in Nancy’s tone -caught his fancy, reminded him, too, of an indefinite something in his -past. With calm deliberation, he fumbled about for the string of his -glasses, put them on and favored Nancy with a second scrutiny, critical -and prolonged. The girl’s cheeks reddened under his gaze, and -instinctively she turned to Brock for protection; but Brock had gone in -search of his friend. From across the room, one rose from a group of -women and came to Nancy’s rescue. - -“Mr. Barth?” she said interrogatively, in her pretty broken French. “I -think it is Mr. Cecil Barth; is it not? My friend, Mrs. Vivian, has -written to me about you. I believe you brought a letter, introducing -yourself to her.” - -Instantly, though a little stiffly, Barth rose to his feet. This -acquaintance, at least, could show its proper credentials. - -“And have you met Miss Howard?” she continued, after a moment’s talk. -“Miss Howard, like yourself, is a stranger among us. Perhaps she will -allow me to introduce Mr. Cecil Barth.” - -“Howard appears to be rather a common name, here in Canada,” Barth -observed. - -“Really? I’ve not met any one else by the name,” Nancy answered rashly. - -“Yes. It was the name of my nurse.” - -“Your—nurse?” - -“Yes. I don’t mean the nurse who took care of me when I was a little -chap,” Barth explained elaborately. “I’ve just been ill, you know, -sprained my ankle out here at Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré and was laid up for -two weeks. My nurse out there was a Miss Howard, Miss Nancy Howard; but -she was an American.” - -Something in the cadence of the final word was displeasing to Nancy, and -the edge came back into her voice. - -“What a coincidence!” she observed quietly. “I am an American, myself, -Mr. Barth.” - -Barth’s answer was refreshingly naïve. - -“Oh, really? But nobody would ever think it, I am sure.” - -It was two days before Nancy met Barth again. From her window, she -watched with pitiless eyes as he hobbled to and from his meals, and her -strategic position enabled her to avoid the dining-room while he was in -it. Meanwhile, her acquaintance with the Lady and St. Jacques had made -rapid strides and, together with Brock, omnipresent and always jovial, -they formed a merry group in the tiny office where the Lady mothered -them all by turns. Nancy shunned the parlor in these latter days. Dr. -Howard was increasingly absorbed in his studies; and Nancy felt the -increasing need of a duenna, as it dawned upon her more and more clearly -that, wherever she went, there Brock and St. Jacques were sure to -follow. Nancy looked at life simply; these healthy-minded boys were only -a pair of excellent playmates. Nevertheless, all things considered, -Nancy preferred to play in the society of an older person. Furthermore, -for long hours at a time, Mr. Cecil Barth sat enthroned in the parlor; -and, by this time, Nancy was resolved to avoid Mr. Cecil Barth at any -cost. - -The gray October noon was cool and sweet, two days later, when Nancy -came tramping down the Grand Allée. The exhilaration of a long walk was -upon her, and her step was as energetic as when she had left The Maple -Leaf, early that morning. Starting at random by way of the Chien d’Or -and the ramparts, she had skirted the Upper Town and come out by Saint -John’s Gate to the Saint Foye Road which she had followed until the -monument _Aux Braves_ was left far behind and the glimpses of the dark -blue Laurentides were lost in the nearer trees. Then, turning sharply to -the eastward, she came into the Grand Allée not far from the shady -entrance to Mount Hermon. A glance at her watch assured her that the -morning was nearly over, and she sped along the interminable plank -sidewalk at a pace which should bring her back to the tollgate in time -for the short detour to the Wolfe monument. Once in sight of that -inscription, grand in its simple brevity, Nancy invariably forgot the -present, forgot the gray wall of the jail close by, forgot even the -insistent voices that hailed her from the cab-stand at the gate. For the -moment, she stood alone in the presence of the past and of that daring -leader whose destiny forbade his entering the stronghold he had -conquered. - -Her breath coming quickly and her lower lip caught between her teeth, -Nancy stood leaning against the rail, looking out across the Plains. So -absorbed was she in her day-dream of the past that she paid no heed to a -cab which halted at her side. - -“Oh, Miss Howard?” - -Starting abruptly, she turned to face Barth. Tired of his solitary -drive, the young fellow’s eyes were smiling down into the familiar face -as, hat in hand, he bent forward in eager greeting. - -Nancy’s day-dream vanished like a broken Prince Rupert’s drop. - -“Good morning, Mr. Barth,” she said grimly. - -“It is a jolly sort of morning; isn’t it? You are paying homage to my -countryman?” he inquired. - -The allusion was unfortunate. It recalled his last words to Nancy, and -she grew yet more grim. - -“Brave gentlemen belong to no country,” she answered, with what seemed -to her a swift burst of eloquence. - -Barth laughed. - -“Poor beggars! Must they all be expatriated? If that’s the case, it’s -better to be whimpering over a sprained ankle than to die victorious on -the Plains of Abraham.” - -“That wasn’t what I meant at all,” Nancy interposed hastily. Then she -took out her watch and looked at it a little ostentatiously. “It is a -glorious day, Mr. Barth, and I wish you a pleasant drive. It is nearly -dinner time, and I must hurry on.” - -“Why not let me take you in?” he urged. “I am going directly back to The -Maple Leaf.” - -But Nancy’s answer permitted no argument. - -“Thank you, no. I am out for the exercise, and you are going on farther. -It is impossible for me to interfere with your drive.” And, with a curt -bow, she turned away and stalked off in the direction of the Grand -Allée. - -The light died out of Barth’s eyes and the friendly smile fled from his -lips, as he realized that, for the first time in his life, he had had -his overtures rejected. Worst of all, the rejection was by an American -and, from his point of view, totally without cause. Mr. Cecil Barth -dropped back in his seat, stretched out his lame foot into a position of -comparative comfort, and then said Things to himself. - -He passed Nancy just outside the Saint Louis Gate. Head up, shoulders -thrown back, she was swinging along with the free step of perfect health -and equally perfect content. From the solitary dignity of his cab, Barth -eyed her askance. - -“Wait a bit, though,” he apostrophized her, with a sudden burst of -prophecy. “The time will come, Miss Howard, when you don’t rush off and -leave me alone like this.” - -But Nancy, rosy and flushed with exercise, entered the dining-room, that -noon, without a glance in his direction. Barth kept his own eyes glued -to his plate; but, from over his right shoulder, he could hear every -word of her merry talk with Reginald Brock. As he listened, Barth began -to question whether England might not have allowed too great a share of -independence to certain of her western colonies. - - - CHAPTER NINE - -“Miss Howard?” - -Nancy glanced up, as St. Jacques appeared in the doorway with Brock at -his side. At the farther end of the room, Barth also glanced up. The -action was wholly involuntary, however, and Barth sought to disguise -with a yawn his ill-timed manifestation of interest. - -“You look as if you had something of importance to announce,” Nancy -replied, as she rose and crossed the room to the door. - -“So we have. What are you going to do, this evening?” - -“That isn’t an announcement; it is a question,” she suggested. - -St. Jacques laughed. Nancy always enjoyed the sudden lighting of his -face. At rest, it was almost heavy in its dark, intent earnestness; at a -chance word, it could turn mirthful as the face of a child, gentle with -the sympathetic gentleness of a strong man. Just now, the rollicking -child was uppermost. - -“How can I tell the difference? I am not English,” he answered. - -Nancy cocked the white of one eye towards the far corner of the room. - -“Neither am I,” she said demurely. - -Brock’s answer was enigmatic; but Nancy held the key. - -“It is always possible to be grateful to Allah,” he said, low, but not -so low as to keep the color from rising in Barth’s cheeks. - -St. Jacques turned suddenly. - -“Good evening, Mr. Barth. Is your ankle better?” he queried. - -But Barth was as yet unable to make any distinctions in measuring out -his displeasure. - -“Thank you, Mr. St. Jacques,” he answered icily. “It is almost quite -well.” - -“O—oh. I am very glad,” St. Jacques responded, in such vague -uncertainty as to how great a degree of gain might be represented by the -_almost quite_ that he entirely missed the note of hostility in Barth’s -voice. - -Again the white of Nancy’s eye moved towards the corner of the room, as -Brock said,— - -“But you haven’t answered St. Jacques’s question, Miss Howard.” - -“I beg your pardon. I am not going to do anything, unless sitting in -this room counts for something.” - -“But it doesn’t.” Barth took an unexpected plunge into the conversation. - -“Then what makes you do it?” Brock inquired. - -His intention had been altogether hostile, for he had been irritated by -the discourtesy shown to his friend. Nevertheless, his irritation gave -place to good-tempered pity, as the young Englishman answered quietly,— - -“Because there’s not so very much left that I can do. One doesn’t get -much variety in a radius of half a mile a day.” - -This time, Nancy turned around. - -“Doesn’t that ligament grow strong yet?” she asked, in a wave of -sympathy which swept her off her guard. - -Then she blushed scarlet, for Barth was looking up at her in manifest -astonishment. How could this impetuous young woman have discovered the -fact that he owned a ligament? He had not considered it a fit subject -for conversation. Was there no limit to the unexpected workings of the -American mind? - -“I didn’t know—Oh, it is better,” he answered. - -Then in a flash the situation dawned upon Brock. He recalled Barth’s -unexplained illness; he remembered Nancy’s story of the Englishman and -his golden guinea. Back in the depths of his sinful brain he stored the -episode, ready to be brought out for use, whenever the time should be -ripe. And Nancy, looking into those clear gray eyes, knew that he knew; -knew, too, that it would be useless to beg for mercy for the -unsuspecting Britisher. Moreover, she was not altogether sure that she -wished to beg for mercy. - -“But really, have you any plan for this evening?” St. Jacques was -urging. - -Dismissing the others from her mind, Nancy smiled into the dark face -which was almost on a level with her own. - -“Nothing at all.” - -“That is good. There is a little opera at the Auditorium, to-night; -nothing great, but rather pretty. I saw it in Saint John, last year. -Brock and I both thought—” - -“What time is it now?” Nancy asked. - -“About seven.” - -Nancy reflected swiftly. Then she said,— - -“Impromptu parties are always the best. Go and ask the Lady if she can -come with us. If she will—” - -But only Barth in his corner heard the ending of her sentence. - -Half an hour later, Nancy came rustling softly down the stairway, her -shining hair framed in the white fur ruff of her cloak. Two immaculate -youths were pacing the hall; but Barth had disappeared. She found him -sitting in the office beside the Lady. He rose, as Nancy appeared in the -doorway. - -“Don’t let me keep you,” he said regretfully. “You are going out?” - -In his present mood of content, St. Jacques felt that he could afford to -be gracious. - -“Don’t we look it?” he asked boyishly. - -Experience had taught Nancy what to expect when Barth fell to fumbling -about the front of his waistcoat. Nevertheless, even she blushed at the -prolonged stare which was too full of interest to be impertinent. Then, -without a glance at the others, Barth let the glasses fall back again. - -“Oh, rather!” he answered, with unwonted fervor. - -The Lady laughed. - -“Is that the best you can say of us, Mr. Barth?” she inquired. - -“_Rather_ is Barth’s strongest superlative,” Brock commented. “Well, are -we ready?” - -The Lady rose with some reluctance. During the few days of his -imprisonment, she had been brought into closer contact with Barth. She -had watched him keenly, and she had come to the conclusion that, -underneath all his haughty indifference, the young Englishman was -lonely, homesick and altogether likable. - -“It is really too bad to turn you out, Mr. Barth,” she said kindly. -“Won’t you stay here and read? It is more cosy here, and you can be -quite by yourself.” - -The friendly words touched Barth and, for an instant, he lost his poise. -A sudden note of dejection crept into his voice, as he answered,— - -“I seem to accomplish that end, wherever I go.” - -Brock was already leading the way to the door, and Nancy was gathering -up her long skirt. It was St. Jacques who lingered. - -“Perhaps you would like to go with us,” he suggested. - -“Oh, I—” Barth was beginning, when the Frenchman interrupted,— - -“We shall be very glad to have you, and I can easily telephone for -another seat. It is not a great opera; but it will be better than -sitting alone in your room.” - -The unexpected addition to their party was by no means to Nancy’s -liking. Nevertheless, her eyes rested upon St. Jacques with full -approval. The deed had been a gracious one, and Nancy felt that, with -Brock and St. Jacques to help her, she could easily manœuvre Barth to -the outer seat beyond the Lady. - -The event justified her belief. Barth demurred, then yielded to a second -invitation which was cordially echoed by the Lady; and it was at the -Lady’s side that he limped down the aisle. Nancy, in the rear with the -others, told herself that he had no need for his profuse apologies -regarding his dress. Even in morning clothes, Barth showed that both his -figure and his tailor were irreproachable. She also told herself that, -until then, she had had no notion of the way the man must have suffered. -It is not without reason that a man of the early twenties allows himself -to hobble ungracefully into a strange theatre, or gets white at the -lips, by the time he is finally seated. - -As St. Jacques had said, the opera was by no means a great one. However, -Nancy, sitting in that dull green interior, looking about her at the -half-veiled lights and at the dainty gowns, was absolutely content. -Barth, at the farther end of the row, was talking dutifully to the Lady, -and Nancy had no idea that his position, bending forward with his hands -clasped over his knee, was taken for the sole purpose of being able to -watch herself. Brock was for the moment wholly absorbed in a scrutiny of -the audience, and Nancy settled back at her ease and fell into idle talk -with St. Jacques. - -Already the young Frenchman was assuming a prominent place in her -thoughts. He was serious without being dull, merry without being -frivolous; and Nancy rarely found it needful to explain to him the -unexpected workings of her somewhat inconsequent mind. Even Brock was -sometimes left gasping in the rear. St. Jacques, although by different -and far less devious paths, was generally waiting to meet her, when she -reached her new viewpoint. - -Little by little, she had come to know much of his history. The strong -habitant blood of two hundred years before had brought forth a line of -sturdy, earnest professional men. True to their ancestry, they had made -no effort to shake off its customs or its tongue. Highly educated, first -at Laval, then at Paris, they had gone back to the simple life of their -own people, to give to them the fruits of what, generations before, had -been taken from them. Because the primeval St. Jacques had wrested -supremacy from his neighbors, there was no reason that his son’s sons -should turn their backs upon their less fortunate brothers, and seek -wealth and fame in the luxury-loving cities to the southward. St. -Jacques was of the physical type of the old-time habitant; but developed -far towards the level of all that is best in manhood. The defensive -instincts of a young girl are not always unreliable. Nancy trusted -Adolphe St. Jacques implicitly. She was sure that he never stopped to -question how to show himself loyal and courteous; it came to him quite -as a matter of course. - -“But you speak English at home?” she asked him. - -“No; only French.” - -“Then you surely have been trained in an English school,” she persisted. - -He shook his head. - -“The school was like Laval, all French.” - -“And yet, you speak as we do.” - -His lower lip rolled out into his odd little smile. - -“As you do, but more slowly. Of course, I understand; but I think in -French, and it takes a little time to put it into English. But my -English is not like Mr. Barth’s.” - -“Nor mine,” she assured him merrily. - -But he met her merriment with a curiously grave face. - -“Miss Howard, I do not see why I can’t like that fellow,” he said -thoughtfully. - -“Nor I. And yet, he isn’t half bad,” Nancy replied, with unexpected -loyalty. - -“I know. He is intelligent, and he means to be a gentleman,” St. Jacques -answered, frowning gravely as he argued out the position. “I think I see -his good points; but I have nothing that—that is in common with any of -them. Our worlds are different, and we can never bring them into -connection.” - -For the moment, Nancy lost her own gayety and spoke with a seriousness -which matched his own. - -“I think I understand you. I have felt it, myself. It is not anything he -does consciously, yet he leaves me feeling that we have absolutely no -common ground. By all rights, we Americans ought to feel kinship with -the English; but—” - -St. Jacques turned to face her. - -“But?” he echoed. - -However, Nancy’s eyes were fastened on her fan, and she answered, with -the fearless honesty of a boy,— - -“But now and then I have felt, since I came here, that my likeness was -entirely to the French.” - -And St. Jacques bowed in silence, as the curtain rose for the final act. - -Just then, there came an unexpected scene and one not down upon the -programme. The soprano was already in place and the tenor, in the wings, -was preparing to rush in to kneel at her feet, when the manager came out -across the stage. In the midst of the gaudy costumes, his black-clothed -figure made an instantaneous impression, an impression which was -heightened by his level voice. - -“Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to be obliged to announce to you—” - -Brock never knew from what corner of the upper gallery came that shrill, -insistent cry of fire. When he realized his surroundings, he was bracing -himself against the seat in front of him, his whole tall figure tense in -the effort to keep Nancy from being crushed by the mad rush for the -doors. Then, with a bound, the young Frenchman vaulted over the seat -towards the other end of the row. - -“Look out for the Lady, Brock,” he ordered, as he dashed past. “Some one -must help Barth. His foot is giving out, and he will drop, in a minute.” - -Then, as swiftly as it had arisen, the panic died away. Again and again -the orchestra pounded out _God Save the King_ with an energetic rhythm -which could not fail to be reassuring. The tumult in the galleries -subsided; one by one, in shamefaced fashion, the people came straggling -back to their seats. Brock was mockingly recounting the list of his -bruises, while the manager completed his ill-timed announcement of the -sudden illness of one of the singers. Then the curtain was rung down and -rung up again for a fresh start. Just as it shivered and began to rise, -Barth bent forward. - -“Oh, Mr. St. Jacques.” - -“Yes?” - -“I have to thank you for your help. I needed it, and it was given in a -most friendly way.” - -St. Jacques had no idea of what those few words cost the dignity of the -taciturn young Englishman. Otherwise, he would have framed his answer in -quite another fashion. As it was, he shook his head. - -“You count it too highly,” he said, with dry courtesy. “In our language -we call such things, not friendship, but just mere chivalry.” - -And Nancy, though unswerving in her loyalty to St. Jacques, felt a -sudden pity for Mr. Cecil Barth, as he shut his lips and leaned back -again in his chair. - - - CHAPTER TEN - -“Daddy dear?” - -Nancy’s accent was a little wishful, as she turned her back on the -habitant in the courtyard and faced her father by the dressing-table. - -“Yes.” The doctor was absently rummaging among his neckties. - -“Can’t you spare time to go out with me, this afternoon?” - -“Where?” - -“Anywhere. Lorette, or Beaumanoir, or even just up and down the city. -You really have seen nothing of Quebec, daddy, and I—once in a while I -get lonely.” - -The doctor dropped his neckties and looked up sharply. - -“Lonely, Nancy? I am sorry. Do you want to go home?” - -“Oh, no!” The startled emphasis of her accent left no doubt of its -truthfulness. - -“Then what is it, child?” - -“Nothing; only—It is just as I said. Now and then I feel a little -lonesome.” - -The doctor smiled at his own reflection in the mirror. - -“I thought Brock and the Frenchman looked out for that, Nancy.” - -“They do,” she returned desperately; “and that is just what worries me. -It makes me feel as if I needed to have some family back of me.” - -Gravely and steadily the doctor looked down into her troubled eyes. - -“Has anything—?” - -Nancy raised her head haughtily, as she answered him. - -“No, daddy; trust me for that. The boys are gentlemen, and, besides, -they treat me as if I were a mere cousin, or something else quite -unromantic. I like them, and I like to talk with them. It is only—” - -Her father understood her. - -“I think you do not need to be anxious, Nancy. Over the top of my -manuscripts, I keep a sharp eye out for my girl. And, besides, it is a -rare advantage for you to have the friendship of the Lady. Even if I -were not here, I would trust you implicitly to her care.” - -Nancy nodded in slow approval. - -“Yes, and she is one of us. Sometimes I am half jealous of her. M. St. -Jacques is her devoted slave.” - -“What about Brock?” - -Nancy laughed with a carelessness which was not entirely feigned. - -“Mr. Brock burns incense before every woman, young or old. He is -adorable to us all, and we all adore him. Still, he never really takes -us in earnest, you know.” - -“I’m not so sure of that,” the doctor said, with sudden decision. - -“You like Mr. Brock?” she questioned. - -“Yes. Don’t you?” - -“I should be an ungrateful wretch, if I didn’t.” Then she added, -“Speaking of ungrateful wretches, daddy, was anything ever more strange -than the whole Barth episode?” - -“Haven’t you told him yet?” - -“Told him! How could I? It is all I can do not to betray myself by -accident; I would die rather than tell him deliberately. But I can’t see -how the man can help knowing.” - -“Extreme egotism coupled with extreme myopia,” the doctor suggested. - -“Exactly. If it were one of us alone, I shouldn’t think so much about -it; but it is a mystery to me how he can see us both, without having the -truth dawn upon him.” - -The doctor pondered for a moment. - -“Do you know, Nancy, I believe I haven’t once come into contact with the -fellow. Except for the dining-room, I’ve not even been into the same -room with him. It is really wonderful how little one can see of one’s -neighbors.” - -Nancy faced back to the window with a jerk. - -“And also how much,” she added mutinously. - -But the doctor pursued his own train of thought. - -“After all, Nancy, it may be our place to make the first advances. We -are older—at least, I am—and there are two of us. He may be waiting -for us to recognize him. I believe I’ll look him up, this evening, and -tell him how we happen to be here.” - -Nancy faced out again with a second jerk. - -“Daddy, if you dare to do such a thing!” - -“Why not? After all, I rather liked Barth.” - -“I didn’t.” - -“But surely you thought he was a gentleman,” the doctor urged. - -“After a fashion,” Nancy admitted guardedly. “Still, now that I have met -him, I’d rather let bygones be bygones. It would be maddening, for -instance, just when I was sailing past him on my way in to supper, to -have him remember how I used to coil strips of red flannel around his -aristocratic ankle. No; we’ll let the dead past bury its bandages and -water them with its liniment, daddy. If I am ever to know Mr. Cecil -Barth now, it must be as a new acquaintance from London, not as my old -patient from Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré.” - -“And yet,” the doctor still spoke meditatively; “Barth appreciated you, -Nancy, and he was certainly grateful.” - -The girl laughed wilfully. - -“He appreciated his hired nurse, daddy, and he was grateful to me to the -extent of paying me my wages. By the way, I’d like that money.” - -“For what?” - -“I would drop it into the lap of the Good Sainte Anne. It is no small -miracle to have delivered a British Lion into the hands of an American -and allowed her to minister to his wounded paw. It was a great -experience, daddy, and, now I think of it, I would like to reward the -saint according to her merits.” - -The doctor’s eyes brightened, as he looked at her merry face. - -“Wait,” he advised her. “Even now, the miracle may not be complete.” - -She ran after him and caught him by the lapels of his collar. - -“Oh, don’t talk in riddles,” she protested. “And, anyway, promise me you -won’t tell any tales to Mr. Barth.” - -“My dear child, I have something to do, besides forcing my acquaintance -upon stray young Englishmen who don’t care for it.” - -She kissed him impetuously. - -“Spoken like your daughter’s own father!” she said approvingly. “Now, if -you really won’t go out to play with me, I’m going to the library to -read the new magazines.” - -An hour later, Nancy was sitting by a window, _Harper’s_ in her lap and -her eyes fixed on the dark blue Laurentides to the northward. The girl -spent many a leisure hour in the grim old building, once a prison, but -now the home of a little library whose walls breathed a mingled -atmosphere of mustiness and learning. Ancient folios were not lacking; -but Kipling was on the upper shelves and one of the tables was littered -with rows of the latest magazines. - -To-day, however, Nancy’s mind was not upon her story, nor yet upon the -Laurentides beneath her thoughtful gaze. The episode of the previous -night had left a strong impression upon her. It was the first time she -had seen the three men together; she had watched them with shrewd, -impartial eyes. Britisher, Canadian, and Frenchman, Catholic and -Protestant: three more distinct types could scarcely have been gathered -into the narrow limits of an impromptu theatre party. Beyond the simple -attributes of manliness and breeding, they possessed scarcely a trait in -common. In two of them, Nancy saw little to deplore; in all three, she -saw a good deal to like. - -Barth she dismissed with a brief shake of her head. He was undeniably -plucky, far more plucky than at first she had supposed. To her -energetic, healthy mind, there had been nothing so very bad about a -sprained ankle. A little pain, a short captivity, and that was the end -of it. Once or twice it had seemed to her that Barth had been needlessly -depressed by the situation, needlessly unresponsive to her efforts to -arouse him. It was only during the past few days that she had seen what -it really meant: the physical pain and weariness to be borne as best it -might, in a strange city and cut off from any friendly companionship. It -even occurred dimly to her mind that Barth was not wholly responsible -for his chilly inability to make new friends, that it was just possible -he regretted the fact as keenly as any one else. Moreover, Nancy was -just. She admitted, as she looked back over those ten days at Sainte -Anne-de-Beaupré, that Barth had been singularly free from fault-finding -and complaint. She also admitted that his ignoring of their past -relations was no mere matter of social snobbery. Mr. Cecil Barth was -totally ignorant of the identity of his former nurse. Having exonerated -him from the charge of certain sins, Nancy dismissed him with a shake of -her head. - -Upon Brock and St. Jacques, her mind rested longer. Until the night -before, they had seemed to her to be a pair of boon comrades. While -their holiday lasted, they would make merry together. When she turned -her face to the southward, the bonds of their acquaintance would drop -apart, and their lives would spin on in their individual orbits. Now, -all at once, she questioned. The naked impulses of humanity show -themselves in times of danger. At last night’s alarm, both Brock and St. -Jacques had turned instinctively to her protection. Then the difference -had showed itself. Brock had given his whole care and strength to her -alone. St. Jacques had swiftly assured himself that she was in safe -hands; then, with a caution to Brock to guard the Lady, he had thrown -himself to the rescue of Mr. Cecil Barth, not because he liked Barth, -but because his instincts were all for the succoring of the weak. All -night long, Nancy had gloried in Brock’s strength and in the singleness -of his devotion. Nevertheless, she was woman enough to glory still more -in the more prosaic gallantry of the dark-browed little Frenchman. As a -rule, the pretty girl in evening dress is prone to inspire more chivalry -than a taciturn Britisher of chilly manners and unflattering tongue. - -Suddenly Nancy buried her nose in her story. Barth had come into the -library and seated himself at the table close at her elbow. When she -looked up again, he had put on his glasses and was waiting to meet her -eye. She nodded to him, and, before she could go back to her magazine -again, he had turned his chair until it faced her own. Over the blue -Laurentides the twilight was dropping fast. Upstairs in the dim gallery -the librarian was moving slowly here and there among his books. -Otherwise the place was quite deserted, save for the two young people -sitting in the sunset glow. - -“And is this one of your haunts, too, Miss Howard?” Barth asked, as he -tossed his magazine back to the table. - -The matter-of-course friendliness of his tone struck a new note in their -acquaintance. Nancy liked it. - -“Yes, I often come here, when it is too stormy for walking,” she -assented. - -“You walk a great deal?” - -“Endlessly. Still, it doesn’t take so many steps to circumnavigate this -little city, I find. I love to explore the out-of-the-way nooks and -corners; don’t you?” - -“I did, until I was cut off in my prime. I had only had two weeks, -before disaster overtook me.” - -This time, Nancy was mindful of her incognito. - -“You broke your ankle, I think?” she said interrogatively. - -“Sprained it. It amounts to the same thing in the end.” - -“Was it long ago?” - -“Three weeks. Sometimes three weeks become infinite.” - -“Was it so painful?” - -“Yes, especially to my pride. It’s so babyish to be ill.” - -“But you weren’t babyish at all,” Nancy protested courteously. - -Barth stared blankly at her for a minute. Then he laughed. - -“You flatter me. Still, it’s not well to take too much on trust, Miss -Howard. But I am glad if I’ve gained any reputation for pluck.” - -Nancy interposed hastily. - -“How did it happen?” - -“I don’t know. The last I remember beforehand, I was standing on the -steps of Sainte Anne, watching a pilgrimage getting itself blessed. The -next I knew, I was lying on my back on the ground, with my ankle twisted -into a knot, and my future nurse taking full possession of my case. That -was your namesake, Miss Howard.” - -“Indeed. Was—was she—pretty?” Nancy inquired, not quite certain what -she was expected to say next. - -“I never knew. My glasses were lost in the scrimmage, and I can’t see -ten inches from my nose without them. I couldn’t very well ask her to -come forward and be inspected at any such range as that. I was sorry, -too. The girl really took very good care of me, and I grew quite fond of -her. Behind her back, I used to call her my Good Sainte Anne. She was -Nancy, you know.” - -Nancy’s magazine slid to the floor. - -“Did she know it?” she asked, smiling a little at her awkward efforts to -reach the book. - -“Allow me,” Barth said gravely. “No; I am not sure that she did.” - -“When you meet her, next time, you can tell her,” Nancy advised him. - -Barth shook his head. - -“I am afraid I never shall meet her.” - -“The world is very tiny,” Nancy observed sententiously. “As a rule, the -same person is bound to cross one’s trail twice.” - -“And, besides, even if I did meet her, how could I ever know her?” - -“How could you help it?” she queried, smiling into his face which seemed -to her, that afternoon, to be curiously boyish and likable. - -“But I have no idea how she looked.” - -“You would know her voice.” - -“Oh, no. I notice voices; but I rarely remember them.” - -“But her name?” - -“It is of no use, just Nancy Howard. Such a commonplace sort of name as -that is no clue. Why, you may be a Nancy Howard, yourself, for anything -I know to the contrary.” - -Nancy laughed, as she rose. - -“I might also be your nurse,” she suggested. “Stranger things than that -have happened, even in my experience, Mr. Barth. However, when you do -meet your Nancy Howard, I hope you will tell her that you liked her.” - -The young fellow looked up at her a little eagerly. - -“Do you suppose she would mind about it?” - -“Women are generally glad to know when they are liked,” Nancy said -sagely. - -“But most likely she knew it, without my telling.” - -Nancy shook her head. - -“More likely she never guessed it. You probably lorded it over her and -treated her like a servant.” - -To her surprise, Barth blushed scarlet. Then he answered frankly,— - -“How you do get at things, Miss Howard! The fact is, I tipped the girl, -one night. It seemed to me then merely the usual thing to do. Since -then, I haven’t been so sure. She was quite a lady, and—” - -Nancy interrupted him ruthlessly. - -“How did she take it?” she demanded. - -“As she would have taken a blow on the cheek. I meant it well. I had -given her a bad day of it, and I thought it was only decent to make up -for it. I wish now I hadn’t; but I couldn’t well ask for the money -again, though I knew from the way her heels hit the floor that she was -wishing she could throw it back at me. Do you know,” Mr. Cecil Barth -added thoughtfully; “that I sometimes think our English ways aren’t -always understood over here.” - -And, in that instant, Nancy forgave the existence of the golden guinea, -still reposing among her superfluous hairpins. - -“Not always,” she assented. “Still, if you were to tell your Nancy -Howard what you have just told me, I think she would understand.” - -“Oh, but I couldn’t do that,” Barth protested. - -“I don’t see why not. Very likely she is no more formidable than I am. -Anyway, I advise you to try.” - -As she stood smiling down at him, there came a click, and the dusky -library was flooded with the blaze from a dozen electric bulbs. They -both winced at the unexpected glare; then Nancy’s eyes and Barth’s -glasses met in a steady gaze. His face was earnest; hers merry and -altogether winsome. Suddenly she held out her hand. - -“Good by, Mr. Barth,” she said kindly. “I am glad you have told me about -this.” - -He rose to his feet. - -“You are going? May I walk back with you?” - -“Thank you so much for offering. It would be a pleasure; but Mr. Brock -is waiting outside to take me for a turn on the terrace.” - -And, the next instant, Barth was left alone with the librarian. - - - CHAPTER ELEVEN - -“Prove it,” Nancy said defensively. - -“I will.” - -“Now.” - -“Give me time.” - -“Time is something one seizes, not takes as a free gift.” - -Brock laughed. - -“Your utterances make superb epigrams, Miss Howard. The only objection -to them arises when one stops to find out what they really mean.” - -“I mean that you can never prove to me that the French are really -outclassed by the English,” she retorted, bringing the discussion back -to its point of departure. - -Brock looked down at her quizzically. - -“Shall St. Jacques and I fight it out in three rounds?” he inquired. - -“That’s no test. You’re not English.” - -“Not in the real sense of it. But neither is he French. We’re both of us -relative terms.” - -“And so useless for the sake of argument,” she replied. - -“For the sake of nothing else, I trust,” Brock said lightly. - -She looked up at him with a smile. - -“Mr. Brock, I am not an ingrate. Without you and M. St. Jacques, I -should have been a good deal more lonely, this past month. My father is -an old man, and not strong. He has appreciated your courtesy to him, -too.” - -Brock shifted his stick to his left hand. - -“Shall we shake hands on it?” he said jovially. “The month has been -rather jolly for us, as Barth would say. The Maple Leaf is a mighty good -sort of place; but the atmosphere there is sometimes a little more -mature than one cares for. St. Jacques and I haven’t given all the good -times. But about the argument: when can you take time to be convinced?” - -“By a walk to the Wolfe monument?” she queried mockingly. - -“No; by two hours of eloquent pleading on my part. I propose to do it by -sheer weight of intellect and statistics. How about to-morrow afternoon -at three?” - -“Very well,” she assented. - -“I’ll cut the office for the afternoon. Shall we choose the Saint Foye -Road for the scene of the fray?” - -“As you like,” she answered merrily. “But remember that you are to do no -monologues. I reserve the right to interrupt, whenever I choose.” - -Then they fell silent, as they tramped briskly up and down the terrace. -The lights from the Frontenac beside them glowed in the purple dusk and -mingled with the glare that lingered in the west. At their feet, the -streets of the Lower Town were crowded in the last mad scurry of the -dying day, and the river beyond was dotted here and there with the -moving lights of an occasional ferry. Then a bugle call rang down from -the Citadel, and Nancy roused herself abruptly. - -“I suppose we really ought to go to supper,” she said regretfully. - -“It isn’t late.” - -“No; but my father will be waiting.” - -Reluctantly Brock faced about. - -“Well, I suppose there are more days to come,” he observed -philosophically. - -“Especially to-morrow,” she reminded him. - -Barth was at the table, when they entered the dining-room. Eager, -flushed with her swift exercise in the crisp night air and daintily trim -from top to toe, Nancy seemed to him a most attractive picture as she -came towards him. Brock was close behind; together, they were laughing -over some jest of which he was in ignorance. Nevertheless, Nancy paused -beside his chair long enough to give him a friendly word of greeting, -and Barth smiled back at her blissfully. For an instant, it occurred to -him that it was rather pleasant to be no longer on the outer edge of The -Maple Leaf. At a first glance, he had resented the supremacy of this -American girl in an English house. The shorter grew his radius, however, -the surer grew his allegiance to the focal point. American or no -American, Nancy was undeniably pretty, her gowns threw the gowns of his -own sisters into disrepute, and, moreover, that afternoon, she had shown -herself altogether friendly and womanly and winning. Accordingly, he -sowed the seeds of incipient indigestion by bolting his supper at a most -unseemly speed, in order to gain possession of a chair near the parlor -door. Close study of the situation, during many previous evenings, had -informed him that this chair held a position of strategic importance. As -a rule, St. Jacques had occupied it, while Barth had rested on his -dignity in remote corners. With the tail of his eye, Barth had assured -himself that the Frenchman was at the final stage of the meal, when he -himself reached the table. However, the Frenchman was munching toast and -marmalade in a most leisurely fashion, turning now and then for a word -with Brock and Nancy; and Barth felt sure that he could overtake him. -His surety increased as St. Jacques, abandoning his toast, took -possession of a mammoth bun and a fresh supply of marmalade. Barth, who -scorned all things of the jammy persuasion, finished his meat with the -greed of a half-grown puppy, scalded his throat with the tea which had -obstinately resisted his efforts to cool it, and, with a brief nod to -St. Jacques, left the table and betook himself to the parlor. - -“Monsieur has a haste upon himself, to-night,” St. Jacques observed -dryly. - -His early training had been potent, and St. Jacques no longer wasted -upon Barth any conversational efforts whatsoever. In Nancy’s presence, -he treated the Englishman with distant courtesy. In the face of Brock’s -teasing, he gave him an occasional grudging word of moral support; but, -at the table, he ignored him completely. According to the creed of -Adolphe St. Jacques, a man should never allow himself to be snubbed -twice by the same person. He carried his creed so far that, waitresses -failing, he chose to rise and march completely around the table rather -than ask for a stray pepper-pot lodged at Barth’s other hand. - -By the time Barth had gone twice through the diminutive evening paper, -advertisements and all, he came to the tardy conclusion that the race -was not always to the swift. He knew that Brock had left the house. Hat -in hand, the tall Canadian had come into the parlor for a book. The next -minute, the front door had slammed, and Brock’s measured stride had -passed the parlor windows. Brock gone, Barth wondered what could be -keeping Nancy. Not even a healthy American appetite could linger for an -hour and a half over a meal of cold beef and marmalade. - -He started upon a third tour of the paper, in true British fashion -beginning with the editorials, and finally losing himself in an -enthusiastic account of a recent opening of fall hats. By the time he -realized that he was mentally trying each of the hats upon Nancy -Howard’s auburn hair, he also realized that it was time he roused -himself to action. Letting the newspaper slide to the floor, he rose and -walked out into the hall. From the office beyond, there came the low, -continuous buzz of earnest voices. Rising on his toes, Barth peered -cautiously around the corner. Then he seized his hat and stick and, -stamping out of the house, banged the street door behind him. The Lady -was temporarily absent. In her place, the office chair was occupied by -Nancy and comfortably settled opposite to Nancy was M. Adolphe St. -Jacques. - -Laval had a banquet at the St. Louis, that night. It began late and -ended early. From certain random words he had overheard, Barth knew that -St. Jacques was not only to be present, but was to be one of the -speakers. Accordingly, a personal animosity mingled with his annoyance -at the sounds from next door which broke in upon his dreams. The singing -was off the key; the cheering was harsh and unduly loud, and when at -last _God Save the King_ was followed by a rush into the quiet street, -Barth crawled out of bed and stood shivering at the window, as the -tri-colored banner and its accompanying crowd marched past his ducal -residence. In his present mood, it would have been a consolation to have -seen that St. Jacques was the worse for his revel. However, that -consolation was denied him. In the sturdy color-bearer heading the line, -he failed to recognize his table companion; the other revellers tramped -along as steadily as did the soldiers going home from church parade. In -the depths of his swaddling blankets, Barth shivered. He shivered again, -as he crawled back into the icy sheets which he had thoughtlessly left -open to the chill night air. - -His spirits rose, next morning, when he discovered that St. Jacques did -not appear at breakfast. They fell again, when Nancy also failed to -appear. His masculine mind could not be expected to discern that she had -risen early, in order to attack a basket heaped with long arrears of -undarned socks and flimsy stockings. His near-sighted eyes had not -discovered Nancy, sitting at her own front window, with a stout number -thirteen drawn on over her slender hand. Nancy saw him, however; and, in -the midst of her musings, she took friendly note of the fact that, this -morning, Barth scarcely limped at all. - -Barth loitered in his room until the dinner hour was past. To the Lady -he gave the excuse of important letters; but a copper coin would have -paid the postal bills incurred by his morning’s work. The honest fact -was that he longed acutely for more of Nancy’s society, and he had no -idea how to set about obtaining it. To ask it would be too bald a -compliment; he lacked the arrogant graces of his Canadian rivals who -appropriated the girl promptly and quite as a matter of course. Barth -had been used to more deliberate and tentative methods. Nevertheless, as -he stared at the yellow walls of his room, he took a sudden resolve. -English methods failing, he would, according to the best of his ability, -adopt the methods of America. In his turn, he too would take possession -of Nancy. With Nancy’s possible wishes in the matter, he concerned -himself not at all. - -“Too bad it rains!” Brock said, as he met Nancy at dinner, that noon. - -“Because you must delay your argument?” - -“No. Because we can’t have it in the open air. The Saint Foye Road must -be changed for the parlor.” - -“Can you do it there?” - -“Why not? It is always empty, in the afternoon.” - -“I didn’t mean that. But will there be room for you there?” Nancy -questioned, with lazy impertinence. “I have always noticed that a man -needs to gesticulate a great deal, whenever he is arguing for a lost -cause.” - -Brock laughed, as he patted his side pocket. - -“Don’t be too sure it is lost. You haven’t seen my documents yet. Can -you be ready, directly after dinner?” - -“As soon as I see my father off. Else he would be sure to forget his -goloshes and neglect to open his umbrella. A father is a great -responsibility; isn’t it, daddy?” she added, with a little pat on the -gray tweed sleeve. - -Nearly an hour later, Barth bounced into the room. By largesse wisely -distributed, he had gained a good dinner, in spite of his tardiness. He -had found Brock’s coat hanging on the rack where he had left his own; -and experience had taught him where Brock, once inside The Maple Leaf, -was generally to be found. The office was quite deserted; and, with -unerring instinct, Barth betook himself in the direction of the parlor. - -In the angle behind the half-shut door, at a table covered with maps and -papers, Brock and Nancy sat side by side. They looked up in surprise, as -Barth dashed into the room. - -“Good afternoon, Miss Howard,” he said abruptly. - -It was Brock who answered. - -“You appear to be in haste about something,” he remarked. - -“Oh, no. I have no engagement for the afternoon. I just looked in to see -if Miss Howard—” - -Again it was Brock who answered. - -“Miss Howard has an engagement.” - -“To—?” Barth queried, as he edged towards Nancy’s side of the table. - -Craftily Brock avoided the ambiguous preposition. - -“Miss Howard and I are busy together, this afternoon.” - -“Oh, really. I am very sorry. I hope I don’t intrude.” And, with the -hope still dangling from his lips, Barth plumped himself down on the -sofa beside them and felt about for his glasses. As soon as they were -found and settled on his nose, he turned to Nancy. “I do hope I’m not in -the way,” he reiterated spasmodically. - -Brock was growling defiantly in his throat; but Nancy’s answer was -dutifully courteous. - -“Not at all, Mr. Barth.” - -“You are sure you wouldn’t rather I went away?” he persisted. - -“It isn’t our parlor,” Nancy reminded him. - -“Yours by right of possession.” As he spoke, Barth arose and carefully -closed the door. - -“Oh, no. And we could easily move out.” - -Barth looked startled. It was hard enough to force himself to this -cheerful arrogance of manner. It was harder still to have the manner -miss fire in this fashion. It was thus, to his mind, that Brock was -accustomed to take forcible possession of Nancy’s leisure hours. He had -never heard her suggest the advisability of moving out, when Brock came -in upon the scene. Vaguely conscious that something was amiss, Barth -nevertheless persevered in his undertaking. - -“Oh, but why should you move out?” - -Nancy’s eyes lighted, half with amusement, half with impatience. What -was the man driving at? Only yesterday she had been ready to accept him -as a friend, as a man of tact and ingrained breeding. Now his former -obtuseness seemed to have returned upon him, fourfold. And she had just -been explaining to Brock that the man wasn’t half bad, after all. The -question of what Brock must be thinking of her taste lent an added tinge -of acidity to her reply. - -“Merely in case you wished to move in,” she answered, with the lightest -possible of laughs. - -Barth turned scarlet; but he valiantly sought to explain. - -“But I only came in here, because I was looking for you.” - -From a man of Barth’s previous habits of speech, this was rather too -direct. In her turn, Nancy became scarlet. - -“What did you wish, Mr. Barth?” - -“Oh, just to—to talk to you. It is a beastly day, you know; and I -thought—I fancied—” - -Nancy cut in remorselessly. Instead of recognizing Barth’s imitation of -the American manner, she came to the swift conclusion that his vagueness -was due to temporary dementia. - -“I am sorry, Mr. Barth; but I am very busy with Mr. Brock. Don’t let us -drive you away, though. We can go to the office.” - -“But don’t do that. Stay here. That’s what I came for. I fancied you -would like to have a little more talk about Sainte Anne.” - -Nancy felt Brock’s keen gray eyes fixed upon her, felt the world of -merriment in their depths. She reflected swiftly. During the past twenty -hours, there had been scant chance that Barth should have discovered her -identity. His suggestion was doubtless only the random result of chance. -Nevertheless, with Brock’s eyes upon her, she was unable to parry the -suggestion with her wonted ease. - -“Why should I care to talk about Sainte Anne?” she asked coldly. - -“I—I thought you seemed interested, last night.” - -Again Nancy felt Brock’s eyes on her, and she chafed at the false -position in which she found herself. It was plain that Brock took it for -granted that she had decoyed the unsuspecting Barth into telling over -the tale of his experiences; and Nancy, rebelling at the suspicion, was -powerless to deny it. She felt a momentary pity for the young Englishman -who seemed bent upon offering himself up as a victim to his allied foes, -yet she found it impossible to come to his rescue without imperiling her -secret. - -Suddenly Barth spoke again. - -“Were you ever at Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré, Miss Howard?” - -There was an instant’s pause, when it seemed to Nancy that Brock must be -able to count the throbbing of her pulse. Then she answered quietly,— - -“Once, quite a long time ago. However, the whole episode is so -unpleasant that I rarely allow myself to think much about it. Mr. Brock, -perhaps we’d better go out to the office, if Mr. Barth will excuse us.” - - - CHAPTER TWELVE - -Nancy spent the evening in the Valley of Humiliation, Barth spent it in -the office with the Lady. - -“But what did you say to irritate her?” the Lady asked at length, when -Barth, by devious courses, had brought the conversation around to Nancy. - -“Oh, nothing. I wouldn’t irritate Miss Howard for any consideration,” he -returned eagerly. - -“But she was irritated.” - -“Y—es; but I didn’t do it.” - -The Lady smiled. Liking Barth as she did, she could still realize that -his point of view might be antagonistic to a girl like Nancy. Moreover, -she too had seen Barth, that noon. She too had wondered at the -unaccountable elation of his manner; and she had recorded the impression -that, when a narrow Britisher begins to expand his limits, the broad -American would better make haste to seek shelter. - -“Tell me all about it,” she said kindly. - -Barth’s feigned arrogance of manner had fallen from him; it was a most -humble-minded Britisher who stood before the Lady, and the Lady pitied -him. Barth’s eyes looked tired; the corners of his mouth drooped, and -dejection sat heavy upon him. - -The Lady turned a chair about until it faced her own. - -“Sit down and tell me all about it, Mr. Barth,” she repeated. - -Barth obeyed. Later, alone in his room, he wondered how it was that he -had been betrayed into speaking so frankly to a comparative stranger; -yet even then he felt no regrets. A petted younger son, he had been too -long deprived of feminine companionship and understanding. Now that it -was offered, he accepted it eagerly. Moreover, Barth was by no means the -first lonely youth to pour the story of his woes into the Lady’s ear. - -Seated with the light falling full upon his honest, boyish face, he -plunged at once into his confession, with the absolute unreserve that -only a man customarily reserved can show. - -“It is just a case of Miss Howard,” he said bluntly. “She is an -American, and not at all like the girls I have known, treats you like a -good fellow one minute, and freezes you up the next. I can’t seem to -understand her at all.” - -“What makes you try?” the Lady asked. - -It never seemed to occur to the young fellow to blush, as he answered,— - -“Because I like her a great deal better than any other girl I ever saw.” - -In spite of herself, the Lady smiled at the unqualified terms of his -reply. - -“It hasn’t taken you long to find it out.” - -“No. But what’s the use of waiting to make up your mind about a thing of -that sort?” Barth responded, as he plunged his hands into his trouser -pockets. “You like a person, or else you don’t. I like Miss Howard; but, -by George, I can’t understand her in the least!” - -“Is there any use of trying?” the Lady inquired. - -Barth stared at her blankly. - -“Oh, rather! How else would I know how to get on with her?” - -“But, by your own story, you don’t succeed in getting on with her.” - -Barth closed the circle of her argument. - -“No. Because I can’t seem to understand her.” - -“Are you sure she understands herself?” - -“Oh, yes. Miss Howard is very clever, you know.” - -“Perhaps. It doesn’t always follow. And are you sure she cares to have -you understand her?” - -The young Englishman winced at the question. - -“What should she have against me?” he asked directly. - -“I am not saying that she has anything,” the Lady answered, in swift -evasion. “Sometimes it is to their best friends that girls show their -most contradictory sides.” - -“Oh. You mean it is one of her American ways?” - -“Yes, if you choose to call it that.” - -Barth shook his head. - -“Miss Howard is very American,” he observed a little regretfully. - -The Lady smiled. - -“And, my dear boy, so are you very British.” - -“Of course. I mean to be,” Barth answered quietly. - -“And perhaps Miss Howard finds it hard to understand your British ways.” - -Barth looked perplexed. - -“Oh, no. I think not,” he said slowly. “She never acts at all -embarrassed, when she is with me. In fact,” he laughed deprecatingly; “I -am generally the one to be embarrassed, when we are together.” - -There was a short pause. Then Barth continued thoughtfully, as if from -the heart of his reverie,— - -“And I didn’t like her especially, at first. She seemed a -bit—er—cocksure and—er—energetic. Now I am beginning to like her -more and more.” - -“Have you seen much of her?” - -Barth shook his head. - -“No. It is only once that we have had any real talk together. That was -yesterday, at the library. It’s a queer old place, and one talks there -in spite of one’s self. We had a good time. But generally those other -fellows are around in the way.” - -The Lady raised her brows interrogatively. - -“Mr. Brock and that Frenchman,” Barth explained. “They are always with -her; they haven’t any hesitation in coming into the drawing-room and -carrying her off, just as I am getting ready to talk to her.” - -A blot on the Lady’s account book demanded her full attention for a -moment. Then she looked up at Barth again. - -“Why don’t you try the same tactics?” she asked. - -“I beg your pardon?” - -“Why don’t you carry her off, just as Mr. Brock is getting ready to talk -to her?” - -“Because he is so quick that he gets right about it, before I have time -to begin. Mr. Brock has a good deal of the American way, himself,” Mr. -Cecil Barth added, with an accent of extreme disfavor. - -The Lady smiled again. - -“I think you’ll have to develop some American ways, yourself, Mr. -Barth,” she suggested. - -Again the note of dejection came into his voice. - -“I tried. Tried it, this afternoon.” - -“And?” she said interrogatively. - -“It was all wrong.” - -“How do you mean?” - -“I don’t know. I thought I did it just as Mr. Brock does. I went into -the drawing-room and found them together, just the way he has so often -found us. I began to talk to her just as he does, only of course I -wouldn’t think of chaffing her. You know he chaffs her, and she can’t -seem to make him stop,” Barth added, in hasty explanation. - -“What did you talk to her about?” the Lady queried. - -“That’s just it. I didn’t get started talking at all. I just asked her -if she wouldn’t like to talk.” - -Once more the Lady bent over the blot. - -“What did you invite her to talk about?” she asked quietly. - -“Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré and all that.” - -There was a pause. Then,— - -“Go on,” said the Lady. - -“We’d been talking about it in the library, just the afternoon before, -and she seemed interested, asked about my accident and my nurse and all. -Really, we were just beginning to get on capitally, when she had to go. -I thought the best thing to do would be to begin where we left off; but -she turned very cross, wouldn’t say a word to me and finally picked up -her books and walked out of the room. I don’t see what I could have done -to displease her.” And, putting on his glasses, Barth stared at the Lady -with disconsolate, questioning blue eyes. - -The Lady laughed a little. Nevertheless, she felt a deep longing to -scold Nancy, to give Fate a sound box on the ear and to take Mr. Cecil -Barth into her motherly embrace. She liked his frankness, liked the -under note of respect which mingled in his outspoken admiration for -Nancy. She could picture the whole scene: Barth’s nervous assumption of -ease confronted with the nonchalant assurance of Brock, Nancy’s hidden -amusement at the tentative request for polite conversation, and her open -consternation at the subject which Barth had proposed for discussion. It -was funny. She looked upon the scene with the eyes of Nancy and Brock, -yet her whole womanly sympathy lay with the Englishman, an open-hearted, -tongue-tied alien in a land of easy speech. Barth’s hand rested on the -corner of her desk. Bending forward, she laid her own hand across his -fingers. - -“Don’t worry, Mr. Barth,” she said kindly. “You and Miss Howard will be -good friends in time. It is an odd position, your meeting here on -neutral soil. Your whole ways of life are so different that you find it -hard to understand each other. I am half-way between you, and I know you -both. What is more, I like you both, and I’d like to see you good -friends. Leave something to time, and a great deal to Miss Howard. -And—forgive me, my dear boy, but I am quite old enough to be your -mother—I would let the American ways take care of themselves, and just -be my own English self. If Miss Howard is going to like you at all, it -will be for yourself, not for any misfit manners you may choose to put -on.” - -“But, the question is, is she going to like me at all?” Barth said -despondingly. - -The Lady’s eyes roved over him from the parting of his yellow hair to -the toes of his unmistakably British shoes. - -“Forgive my bluntness,” she said, with a smile; “if I say that I don’t -see how she can very well help it.” - -Half an hour later, she knocked at Nancy’s door. - -“May I come in?” she asked blithely. “All the evening, I have been -talking to a most downcast young Englishman, and now I have come up to -administer justice to you. The justice will be tempered with mercy; -nevertheless, I think you deserve a lecture.” - -“Your Englishman is an idiot,” Nancy observed dispassionately; “and I -don’t deserve any lecture at all. However, go on.” - -Crossing the room, the Lady turned on the electric light. - -“Nancy Howard,” she said sternly; “your voice was suspicious enough; but -your eyes betray you. You’ve been crying.” - -“What if I have?” the girl asked defiantly. - -The Lady’s quick eye caught the glitter of a gold coin on the -dressing-table. Then she turned back to Nancy. - -“Girls like you don’t cry for nothing,” she remarked. “May I sit down on -the bed?” - -Nancy nodded. Then she replied to the first remark. - -“I wasn’t crying for nothing. I was crying over my conscience.” - -“What has your conscience been doing?” - -“Pricking,” the girl answered frankly. “I hate to be nasty to people; -but now and then I am driven into it.” - -“Mr. Barth?” - -“Yes, Mr. Barth,” Nancy assented, with an accent of finality. “Now go on -with your lecture.” - -The Lady laughed. - -“Really, Nancy, you sometimes take away even my Canadian breath. I can -imagine that you leave Mr. Barth gasping.” - -“Mr. Barth would gasp in a stilly vacuum,” Nancy replied tranquilly. - -“Very likely. It is possible that you might do likewise. But to my -point. Was it quite fair, Nancy, to encourage the boy to talk about the -Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré episode, and then snub him, the next time he -alluded to it?” - -“Did he tell you any such tale as that?” Nancy demanded, in hot wrath. - -“He—he implied it.” - -“And you believed him?” - -“I—I couldn’t understand your doing it.” The Lady began to wonder -whether the promised lecture were to be given or received. - -Nancy sprang up and walked the length of the room. - -“Oh, the horrid little cad!” she said explosively. - -The Lady turned champion of the absent Englishman. - -“He’s not a cad, Nancy; he is a thoroughbred little Englishman. I have -seen his type before, though never so extreme a case. He is frank and -honest as a boy can be. He’s born to his British ways, as we are born to -ours. It is only that you’re not used to him, and don’t understand him.” - -“He doesn’t leave much to the imagination,” Nancy observed scathingly. -Then she dropped down beside the Lady, and looked her straight in the -eyes. “I don’t want you to be thinking horrid things of me,” she said -slowly. “I don’t want you to think I have been two-sided with Mr. Barth. -After what happened at Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré, I have tried to keep out -of his way as much as possible. It has been a miserable chance that has -brought us into such close quarters; a recognition wasn’t going to be -pleasant for either of us. But, every time I meet the man, he seems -possessed with an insane desire to babble to me about his ankle. I could -tell more about it than he can, for I was in league with the doctor, and -heard all the professional details. A dozen times, I have been on the -very verge of betraying myself. Last night, it reached a climax. He -found me alone in the library, and he began to talk. Really, he was more -agreeable than I ever knew him before. But you know how it is: the -presence of a grass widow always moves you to rake up all the divorce -scandals of your experience. Before we had talked for ten minutes, the -man was calmly informing me that he was really very fond of his nurse, -that, in the secret recesses of his heart, he called her his Good Sainte -Anne, that he wished he could meet her again, and finally that he was -very sorry he had tipped her.” - -“Indeed!” - -“No; I don’t mean that,” Nancy protested hastily. “You are the disloyal -one now. He didn’t imply that she had not deserved the tip. His regrets -were for sentimental reasons, not frugal. He was very nice and honest -about it, and I never liked him half so well.” - -“And showed it,” the Lady added gently. - -“Very likely I did. I don’t see why not. But, to-day!” Nancy paused. - -“What happened?” - -“Didn’t he tell you?” - -“Only his side of it. Still, I could imagine the rest.” - -“No; you couldn’t. No one could, without having seen it. He came -dashing, fairly splashing, into the parlor where Mr. Brock and I were -squabbling over politics. Only a little while before, I had been -defending him to Mr. Brock, telling him that Mr. Barth was really a -gentleman and clever, that I liked him extremely. And then, on the heels -of that statement, the man came whacking into the room, interrupted our -talk without a shadow of an apology and then, after acting like a crazy -being, he capped the climax of his sins by specifically inviting me to -talk to him some more about Sainte Anne.” - -“Well?” - -“Well.” - -The rising cadence was met by the falling one. Then silence followed. - -“Well,” Nancy resumed at length; “you see my predicament. Mr. Brock -knows the whole story; I let it out to him, the day we met. I had no -idea I should ever meet Mr. Barth again, and I used no names. Mr. Brock -patched together the two ends of the story, and told M. St. Jacques; and -it has been all I could do to keep them from using it as an instrument -of torture on poor Mr. Barth. To-day, I knew Mr. Brock was furious at -him; I knew he was longing to say something, and, worst of all, I knew -he thought, as you did, that I had been coaxing Mr. Barth to make an -idiot of himself.” - -“Well?” the Lady said again. - -“And he does it, without being coaxed,” Nancy responded mutinously. Then -she relented. “But he was so pitifully bent on making a fool of himself, -just when I had been pleading his cause to the very best of my ability! -He babbled at us till I was on the very verge of frenzy. Stop him I -could not. He absolutely refused to know when he was snubbed. At last, I -fled from the scene and took Mr. Brock with me, and, for all I know to -the contrary, the man may be sitting there in the parlor, babbling -still.” - -Nancy laughed; but the tears were near the surface. - -“And then?” the Lady asked gently. - -“Then I came up here and bemoaned my sins,” Nancy answered, with utter -frankness. “I hate to be hateful; but I lost my head, and couldn’t help -it. Now I am sorry, for I truly like Mr. Barth, and I know I scratched -him till he felt it clear down through his veneering. He has not only -spoiled my whole evening; but, worse than that, I have an apology on my -hands, and I really don’t see how I am going to make it, without being -too specific.” - - - CHAPTER THIRTEEN - -Thirty-six hours after his banquet, St. Jacques reappeared in the -dining-room. Barth eyed him narrowly. - -“Back again?” Nancy queried in blithe greeting. - -“At last.” - -“It was a good while. How are you feeling?” - -Barth felt a shock of surprise. Did American girls have no reservations? - -“A good deal the worse for wear,” the Frenchman was replying, with equal -frankness. - -Nancy laughed. - -“Any particular spot?” she inquired. - -“Yes, my head. There’s nothing much to show; but it feels swollen to -twice its usual size, to-day.” - -“I am so sorry,” she answered sympathetically. “Can I do anything for -it?” - -St. Jacques laughed, as his face lighted with the expression Nancy liked -so well. - -“Does your pity go a long way?” he asked. - -“At your service.” - -“To the extent of a walk, after dinner?” - -“Yes, if you feel up to it,” she answered. “It is a delightful day, and -you know I want to hear all about it.” - -Towards the middle of the morning, Barth sought the Lady. - -“Really, it is none of my affair; but what is the girl thinking of?” he -demanded. - -The Lady’s mind chanced to be upon the problem involved in a departing -waitress. - -“What girl?” she asked blankly. - -“Miss Howard.” - -“What is the matter with Miss Howard now?” - -“I don’t know. What can she be thinking of, to go for a walk with a man -in his condition?” he expostulated. - -“Whose condition?” - -“That French Catholic, Mr. St. Jacques.” - -“But there’s nothing wrong with his condition. It is only his head,” the -Lady explained. - -“Oh, yes. That is what I mean. She knows it, too.” - -“Of course. We all know it, and we all are so sorry.” - -Barth was still possessed of his self-made idea, and continued his -argument upon that basis. - -“Naturally. One is always sorry for such things. Sometimes even good -fellows get caught. Still, that is no reason a girl should speak of it, -to say nothing of going to walk with the fellow. Really, Miss Howard’s -father ought to put a stop to it.” - -This time, even the Lady lost her patience. - -“Really, Mr. Barth, I don’t see why. On your own showing, you asked Miss -Howard to let you walk home from the library with her, two days ago.” - -“Yes. But that was different.” - -“I don’t see how. M. St. Jacques is as much a gentleman as you are.” - -“Oh. Do you think so? But what about his head?” - -For the instant, the Lady questioned the stability of Barth’s own head. - -“I really can’t see how that enters into the question at all. Even a -gentleman is liable to be hit on the head, when he is playing lacrosse.” - -“Lacrosse?” - -“Yes. M. St. Jacques spent yesterday at Three Rivers with the lacrosse -team from Laval.” - -“Oh.” In his mortification at his own blunder, Barth’s _oh_ was more -dissyllabic even than usual. “I didn’t understand. I thought it was only -the result of the banquet.” - -The Lady looked at him with a steady, kindly smile. - -“Mr. Barth,” she said; “I really think that idea was not quite worthy of -you.” - -And Barth shut his lips in plucky acceptance of the rebuke. - -The haunt of tourists and the prey of every artist, be his tools brushes -or mere words, Sous-le-Cap remains the crowning joy of ancient Quebec. -The inconsequent bends in its course, the wood flooring of its roadway, -the criss-cross network of galleries and verandas which join the two -rows of houses and throw the street into a shadow still deeper than that -cast by the overhanging cape, the wall of naked rock that juts out here -and there between the houses piled helter-skelter against the base of -the cliff: these details have endured for generations, and succeeding -generations well may pray for their continued endurance. Quebec could -far better afford to lose the whole ornate length of the Grand Allée -than even one half the flying galleries and fluttering clothes-lines of -little Sous-le-Cap. - -“And yet,” St. Jacques said thoughtfully; “this hardly makes me proud of -my countrymen.” - -From the many-colored garments flapping on the clothes-lines, Nancy -glanced down at a scarlet-coated child playing in the open doorway of a -shop at her side. - -“Don’t think of the sociological aspect of the case,” she advised him. -“Once in a while, it is better to be simply picturesque than it is to be -hygienic. I have seen a good deal of America; I know nothing to compare -with this.” - -St. Jacques picked his way daintily among the rubbish. - -“I hope not. I also hope there’s not much in France.” - -“You have been there?” Nancy questioned. - -“Not yet. After two more years at Laval.” - -“To live there?” - -“Only to study. My home is here.” - -“Not in Quebec?” - -“No. In Rimouski. I am a countryman,” he added, with a smile. - -“And shall you go back there?” - -“It is impossible to tell. I hope not; but my father is growing older, -and there are little children. In a case like that, one can never choose -for himself,” he said, with a little accent of regret. - -“But your profession,” Nancy reminded him. “Will there be any opening -for it there?” - -St. Jacques shrugged his shoulders. - -“There is always an opening. It is only a question whether one feels too -large to try to enter it. If I were as free as Mr. Brock, I would come -back here, or go to The States. As it is, I am not free.” - -“Tell me about Rimouski,” Nancy urged him. - -“What do you care to know? It is a little place. The ocean-going -steamers stop there; there is a cathedral and a seminary.” - -“Is it pretty?” - -His eyes lighted. - -“I was born there, Miss Howard. It is impossible for me to say. Perhaps -sometime you may see it for yourself.” - -“I wish I might,” the girl assented idly. - -The next minute, she felt herself blushing, as she met the eager look on -the face of her companion, and she hurried away from the dangerous -subject. - -“How long shall you be abroad?” she asked hastily. - -“Two years.” - -“Nearly five years before you go into your professional work.” - -“Yes.” His accent dropped a little. “It is long to wait.” - -“It depends on the way the time goes,” Nancy suggested, with a fresh -determination to drive the minor key from his voice. “Between banquets -and lacrosse matches and broken heads, your days ought not to drag. Was -it really so bad a bump you had?” - -Pushing his cap still farther to the back of his head, St. Jacques -lifted the dark hair from his forehead. - -“So much,” he said coolly, as he displayed a short, deep cut. - -Nancy exclaimed in horror. - -“M. St. Jacques! And you take it without a word of complaint.” - -This time, he laughed. - -“Complaint never mends a split head, Miss Howard. We Frenchmen take our -knocks and say nothing.” - -“Is that aimed at Mr. Barth?” Nancy asked. - -St. Jacques shook his head; but his lips and eyes denied the gesture of -negation. - -“Really,” she urged; “he didn’t complain.” - -“No; but he talked about it more than I cared to listen.” - -“Aren’t you a little hard on him, M. St. Jacques?” - -The Frenchman looked up in surprise. - -“Is he your friend, then?” he queried gravely. - -“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Nancy was vainly struggling to frame her reply -according to the strictest truth. “I think he thought so; but now we -don’t know.” - -“I am afraid I do not understand,” St. Jacques said, with slow -formality. “As your friend, I shall treat him with respect. Otherwise—” - -“Oh, he isn’t my friend,” Nancy explained hurriedly. “We have had an -awful fight; at least, not exactly a fight, but I was rude to him.” - -St. Jacques interrupted her. - -“Then it will make up for some of the times he has been rude to me, and -I shall be still more in your debt.” - -Nancy shook her head ruefully. - -“No; we can’t square our accounts that way, M. St. Jacques. I have seen -Mr. Barth detestably rude to you, and it never once has dawned upon him -that he wasn’t the very pink of courtesy. With me, it was different. I -did my very best, not only to be rude to him; but to have him know that -I meant it.” - -Again came the answering flash over the Frenchman’s face. - -“I am very glad you did it,” he said briefly. - -“I’m not, then,” Nancy said flatly. “I hate making apologies.” - -“Then let him apologize to you,” St. Jacques suggested, laughing. “He -has no right to put himself in the wrong so far as to make you feel it -worth your while to be rude to him.” - -Nancy laughed in her turn. - -“M. St. Jacques, you do not like Mr. Barth,” she said merrily. - -“No, Miss Howard; I do not. It will be a happy day for me, when he takes -himself out to his ranch.” - -“But I shall have gone, long before that,” she said thoughtfully. - -St. Jacques turned upon her with a suddenness which startled her. - -“So soon as that?” - -“Sooner. Three or four weeks more here will see the end of our stay.” - -The blood rolled hotly upward across his swarthy face. Then it rolled -back again, leaving behind it a pallor that brought his thin lips and -resolute chin into strong relief. - -“I am sorry,” he said slowly. “I thought you had come to stay.” - -“Only till my father has ransacked every book in your Laval library,” -she said, with intentional lightness. - -He declined to answer her tone. The words of his reply dropped, clear, -distinct, slow, upon her ears. - -“No matter. Perhaps some day you may come back to Canada, Miss Howard, -come back, I mean, to stay.” - -Nancy drew two or three short, quick breaths. Then she laughed with a -forced mirth. - -“Perhaps. One can never tell. I like Canada,” she said nervously. - -St. Jacques faced her. - -“And the Canadians?” he asked steadily. - -His dark eyes held hers for a moment. Then she found herself repeating -his words,— - -“Yes, and the Canadians.” - -A moment later, she gave a sudden start of surprise and relief. Rounding -a sharp angle in the winding street, they had found themselves directly -upon the heels of Mr. Cecil Barth who was sauntering slowly along just -ahead of them. Turning at the sound of their feet on the board roadway, -he bowed to Nancy with deprecating courtesy, to her companion with -studied carelessness. - -Nancy’s quick eye caught the veiled hostility of the salute exchanged by -the two men. Her own poise was shaken by the little scene through which -she had just been passing, but she made a desperate effort to regain -control of the situation. - -“Mr. Barth,” she said impetuously. - -Barth had resumed his stroll. At her words, he turned back instantly. - -“Why not wait for us?” she suggested, as she held out her hand with -frank cordiality. “M. St. Jacques deserves congratulations from us all, -for his record at lacrosse, yesterday; and I know you’ll like to add -your voice to the general chorus. And, besides that, I owe you an -apology. I was very rude to you, yesterday; but, at least, I have the -saving grace to be thoroughly ashamed of myself, to-day.” - -And Barth, as he took her hand, felt that that minute atoned for many a -bad half-hour she had given him in the past. - -Together, they came out from under the hanging balconies, strayed on -through Sault-au-Matelot and, coming up Mountain Hill Street, wandered -out along the Battery. There they lingered to lean on the wall and stare -across the river at the heights of Lévis bathed in its sunset light -which is neither purple, nor yet altogether of gold. To Nancy, the light -was typical of the hour. The girl was no egotist; yet all at once she -instinctively realized that one or the other of these men was holding -the key to her life. Which it should be, as yet she could not know. The -hour had come, unsought, unexpected. For the present, it was better to -drift. The mood of St. Jacques was kindred to her own. As for Barth, he -was supremely content, without in the least knowing why his recent -dissatisfaction should have fallen from him. - -While they lingered by the wall, to watch the fading glow, Dr. Howard -suddenly stepped out into the road behind them. As he came through the -gate in the old stone wall, his glance rested upon the trio of familiar -figures, and his voice rang out in hearty greeting. - -“Well, Nancy,” he called. “Are you watching for a hostile fleet?” - -With the eagerness which never failed to welcome him, she turned to face -her father; but, midway in her turning, she was stopped by Barth’s -voice. - -“Nancy!” he echoed. “Are you another Nancy Howard?” - -She faltered. Then she met his blue eyes full and steadily. - -“No,” she said, with fearless directness. “So far as I know, Mr. Barth, -I am the only one.” - - - CHAPTER FOURTEEN - -With masculine obtuseness, Barth regarded it as a matter of pure chance -that he found Nancy standing alone in the hall, that night. - -“Please go away and take M. St. Jacques with you,” she had begged Brock, -as he had left the table. “I must have it out with him sometime, and I’d -rather have it over.” - -Brock looked at his watch. - -“Will an hour be long enough?” he asked. - -“I can’t tell. Please bid me good night now,” she urged him. - -He smiled reassuringly down into her anxious eyes. - -“Don’t take the situation too tragically, Miss Howard,” he said, with a -brotherly kindness she was quick to feel as a relief to her strained -nerves. “You weren’t to blame in the first place, and I can bear witness -that you have been the most loyal friend he has had. If he is a bit -unpleasant about it, send him to me, and I’ll knock him down.” He rose; -but he lingered long enough to add, “I’ll look in on you, about nine -o’clock, and see if I can help pick up the pieces.” And, with a nod of -farewell, he was gone. - -“Are you busy?” Barth asked, as he joined her, a little later. - -“Am I ever busy in this indolent atmosphere?” she questioned in return, -with a futile effort for her usual careless manner. - -“Sometimes, as far as I am concerned. But what if we come into the -drawing-room? It is quieter there.” - -He spoke gently, yet withal there was something masterful in his manner, -and Nancy felt that her hour was come. Nervously she tried to anticipate -it. - -“And you need a quiet place for the scene of the fray?” she asked -flippantly. - -“Fray?” His accent was interrogative. - -“For the discussion, then.” - -He was moving a chair forward. Then he looked up sharply, as he stood -aside for her to take it. - -“I can’t see that there is reason for any discussion, Miss Howard.” - -“But you know you think I have been playing a double game with you,” -Nancy broke out, in sudden irritation at his quiet. - -His hands in his pockets, he walked across to the window and stood -looking out. Then he turned to face Nancy. - -“No. I am not sure that I do.” - -“You feel that I ought to have told you before?” - -“It would have been a little fairer to me,” he assented. - -“I don’t see why,” she said defensively. - -Barth raised his blue eyes to her face, and she repented her untruth. - -“At least,” she amended; “I don’t see what difference it would have -made.” - -“Perhaps not. Still, it isn’t pleasant to be a stranger, and the one -person outside a secret which concerns one’s self most of all.” - -“No.” - -“I wish you had told me,” he said thoughtfully. “It might have prevented -some things that now I should like to forget.” - -“For instance?” - -“For instance, the way I have told you details with which you were -already familiar.” - -Nancy laughed nervously. - -“And some with which I wasn’t familiar at all,” she added. - -Barth’s color rose to the roots of his hair, and he bit his lip. Then he -answered, with the same level accent,— - -“Yes. But even you must admit that my error was unintentional.” - -Nancy sat up straight in her deep chair. - -“Even me!” she echoed stormily. “What do you mean, Mr. Barth?” - -He met her angry eyes fearlessly, yet with perfect respect. - -“Even you who were willing to take all the advantage of a complete -stranger.” - -“But I took no advantage,” she protested. - -“No,” he admitted, after a pause. “Perhaps it was forced upon you. -However, you accepted it. Miss Howard,” he paused again; “we Englishmen -dislike to make ourselves needlessly ridiculous.” - -She started to interrupt him; but he gave her no opportunity. - -“I was ridiculous. I can fancy how funny it all must have seemed to you: -my meeting you here without recognizing you, my telling you over all my -regard for my former nurse. Of course, I must have seemed an ass to you, -and to Mr. Brock and Mr. St. Jacques, too, after you had told them.” - -This time, Nancy did interrupt him. - -“Stop, Mr. Barth!” she said angrily. “Now you are the one who is unfair. -I did tell Mr. Brock about our adventure at Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré; but -it was when I first met him, when I had no idea that either of us would -ever see you again. I told the adventure; but I used no names. You had -been in the house for several days before Mr. Brock found out that you -were my former patient, and he found it out then from your own lips. -When he told M. St. Jacques, or whether he told him at all, I am unable -to say. I do know that M. St. Jacques knew it; but, upon my honor, I -have told no one but the Lady and Mr. Reginald Brock.” - -Bravely, angrily, she raised her eyes to his. Notwithstanding his former -doubts, Barth believed her implicitly. - -“Forgive my misunderstanding you, then,” he said simply. “But why -couldn’t you have told me?” - -“How could I?” - -“I don’t see why not.” - -“I am sorry,” she said briefly. “It seemed to me out of the question.” - -“Even when we were introduced?” he urged. - -“It was before that that you had refused to recognize me.” - -“When was that?” - -“At the table, the first time you reappeared here,” she said -vindictively. “I did my best to speak to you then; but you tried to give -me the impression that you had never seen me before.” - -Barth bowed in assent. - -“I never had. You forget that my glasses were lost. You should be -generous to a near-sighted man, Miss Howard, as you once were kind to a -cripple. You might have given me another chance, when we were -introduced.” - -“There was nothing to show you cared for it,” Nancy returned curtly. - -“And, even at Sainte Anne, you might have told me you were coming to -Quebec,” he went on. “You knew I was coming here; you might have given -me the opportunity to call and thank you.” - -Impatiently Nancy clasped her hands and unclasped them. - -“What is the use of arguing about it all?” she demanded restlessly. “You -never could see the truth of it; no man could. I don’t want to beg off -and make excuses. I have been in a false position from the start. I -never made it, nor even sought it. It all came from chance. Still, it -has been impossible for me to get myself out of it; but truly, Mr. -Barth,” she looked up at him appealingly; “from the first hour I met you -at Sainte Anne until to-day, I have never meant to be disloyal to you.” - -“Then why couldn’t you have told me you had met me before?” he asked, -returning to his first question with a curious persistency. - -Nancy fenced with the question. - -“But, strictly speaking, I had not met you.” - -Barth’s eyes opened to their widest limit. - -“Oh, really,” he said blankly. - -“No; not in any social sense. Nobody introduced us. I was just your -nurse.” - -Suddenly, for the first time since the discovery of Nancy’s identity, -there flashed upon Barth’s mind the thought of the guinea. He turned -scarlet. Then he rallied. - -“Miss Howard,” he said slowly, as he took the chair at her side; “I am -not sure you were the only one who has been placed in a false position.” - -The girl’s irritation vanished, and she laughed. - -“About the guinea? Perhaps we can cry quits, Mr. Barth. Still, your -mistake was justifiable. You took me for a nurse.” - -“Yes. And so you were.” - -“Thank you for the implied compliment. But, I mean, for a hired nurse.” - -“Certainly. I did hire you. At least, I paid you wa—” - -In mercy to his later reflections, Nancy cut him off in the midst of his -phrase. - -“Perhaps. We knew you wouldn’t let me do it out of charity, so my father -collected his usual fee in two ways.” - -Barth’s glasses had fallen from his nose. Now, his eyes still on Nancy’s -face, he felt vaguely for the string. - -“And you never received your money?” - -Again the frosty accent came into Nancy’s tone. - -“Certainly not.” - -“Oh, what a beastly shame!” And, seizing his glasses, Barth stared at -her in commiserating surprise. - -For a short instant, Nancy longed to tweak the glasses from his nose. -Then she laughed. - -“As a rule, I don’t nurse people for money, Mr. Barth,” she said -lightly. - -“No? How generous you must be, Miss Howard!” - -Was there ever a more maddening combination of manly simplicity and -British bigotry, Nancy reflected impatiently. More and more she began to -despair of making her position clear. Nevertheless, she went on -steadily,— - -“And, in fact, you were my one and only patient.” - -“That you have ever had, in all your professional life?” - -“I never had any professional life,” Nancy replied shortly. - -Barth’s face showed his increasing perplexity. - -“But you are a nurse.” - -“No,” Nancy answered in flat negation. - -“You nursed me.” - -“After a fashion.” - -“What for?” - -Again Nancy’s impatience gave place to mirth. - -“To cure you, of course.” - -“Rather! But I didn’t mean that. We all know it, in fact; and you did it -awfully well. But what made you—er—pick me out in the first place?” - -“Pick you out?” This time, Nancy was the one to show perplexity. - -“Yes. How did you happen to choose me for a patient?” - -Nancy gasped at the new phase of the situation opened by Barth’s words. -In his British ignorance of American customs, did he think that she -habitually wandered about the country, selecting attractive strangers to -be the objects of her feminine ministrations? - -“I didn’t choose you,” she said indignantly. - -“Then, by George, how did you get me?” Mr. Cecil Barth queried, by this -time too tangled in the web of mystery to select his words with care. - -Nancy blushed; then she frowned; then she laughed outright. - -“Mr. Barth,” she said at last; “we are talking in two different -languages. If we keep on, we shall end by needing an interpreter. This -is the whole of my side of the story, so please listen. I am not a -nurse. I am not anything but just a commonplace American girl who dances -and who eats fish in Lent. My father is a doctor, and, even in New York, -one knows his name. He came up here to rest and to gather materials for -a monograph on the miracles of Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré, and I came with -him. I always do go with him. We had been at Sainte Anne a little more -than a week, when there was a pilgrimage. I had never seen a pilgrimage, -so I went down to the church. As I was coming out afterwards, I saw some -one fall. No one was near, except the pilgrim people; and they all lost -their heads and fell to crowding and gesticulating. I was afraid you -would be trodden on; and my father has always trained me what to do in -emergencies, so I told the people to stand back. By the time I could get -to you, you had fainted; but I saw you were no pilgrim. In fact,” Nancy -added, with sudden malice; “I took you for an American.” - -Barth winced. - -“Oh, I am sure you were very kind,” he protested hastily. - -“I am glad you think so. Well, you know the rest of the story.” - -Barth rose and stood facing her. - -“No,” he objected. “That is exactly what I do not know.” - -“How you were taken to the Gagnier farm?” - -“How you became my nurse,” he persisted quietly. “Please don’t leave -that out of your story, Miss Howard.” - -She smiled. - -“It was sheer necessity, Mr. Barth. You said you spoke no French; -neither did I. You were suffering and in need of a doctor at once. I -knew of no doctor there but my father, and you assented to my suggestion -of him. He will tell you that your ankle was in a bad condition and -needed constant care. I knew he was not strong enough to give it, and I -telegraphed all over Quebec in a vain search for a nurse. I couldn’t get -one; neither, for the sake of a few conventions, could I let you end -your days with a stiff ankle. There was only one thing to be done, and I -did it.” She stopped for a moment. Then she added, “I only hope I may -not have done it too clumsily. It was new work for me, Mr. Barth; but I -did the very best I could.” - -In her earnest self-justification, she sat looking up at Barth with the -unconscious eyes of a child. Barth held out his hand. - -“Miss Howard, you must have thought me an awful cad,” he said -contritely. - -“I did, at first; but now I know better,” she answered honestly. “There -was no real reason you should have known I was not an hireling. At -first, I resented it, though. I resented it again, when you came here -and didn’t recognize me. It seemed to me impossible that you could have -spent ten days with me, and forgotten me so completely. It wasn’t -flattering to my vanity, Mr. Barth; and I only gained my lost -self-respect when you informed me, the other day, that you were still -hoping to meet me again.” - -He echoed her laugh; but his tone was a little eager, as he added,— - -“And that, in my secret thoughts, I used to call you my Good Sainte -Anne?” - -Nancy shook her head. - -“Never that, I fear,” she answered lightly. “The Good Sainte Anne works -miracles, Mr. Barth.” - -“Oh, yes,” he said slowly. “I know she does. But sometimes the surest -miracles are the slowest to reach their full perfection.” - -“And there are many pilgrims to her shrine who go away again without -having beheld a miracle,” she reminded him, still with the same -lightness. - -“Oh, rather!” he answered gravely. “Still, do you know, Miss Howard, I -may be the one exception who proves the rule.” - - - CHAPTER FIFTEEN - -“And what next?” Brock inquired, the next morning. - -“Market,” Nancy replied. - -“To spend your guinea?” - -“Hush!” she bade him, with a startled glance over her shoulder. - -“Oh, you needn’t worry. Barth never gets around till the fifty-ninth -minute. He’ll wait until the last trump sounds, before he orders his -ascension robe, and then he’ll tip Saint Peter to hold the gate open -while he puts it on. But what about the market?” - -“I am going with the Lady.” - -“To carry the basket?” - -“No. I’ll leave that for you,” Nancy retorted. - -A sudden iniquitous idea shot athwart Brock’s brain. - -“Very well. What time do you start?” - -“At ten.” - -“Right, oh! I’ll be on hand.” - -An equally iniquitous idea entered Nancy’s head. - -“Have you ever been to market?” she asked. - -“Never.” - -“And you want to go?” - -“Surely I do.” - -“Then we can count on you?” - -“Yes. Ten o’clock sharp. If I’m not there, I’ll agree to send a -substitute. But count on me.” - -When they went their separate ways from breakfast, Brock sought the town -house of the Duke of Kent; but Nancy went in search of the Lady. - -“Were you going to take Tommy to carry the basket?” she asked. - -“Yes. He always goes.” - -“And will the basket be very huge?” - -“Yes.” - -“Good!” Nancy said, laughing. “I am glad, for we are going to leave -Tommy at home, to-day, and take Mr. Brock in his place.” - -“Nancy!” the Lady remonstrated. - -“He insisted upon being invited,” Nancy returned obdurately; “and, if he -does go, he must be made useful. We sha’n’t need both him and Tommy; Mr. -Brock wants to carry the basket.” - -Brock, meanwhile, had left the maid standing in the lower hallway and, -two steps at a time, was mounting the ducal staircase which led to -Barth’s room. His fist, descending upon the panels, cleft the -Englishman’s dream in two. - -“Oh, yes. What is it? Wait a bit, and I’ll let you in.” - -From the other side of the door, muffled sounds betrayed the fact that -Barth was struggling with his dressing-gown and slippers. Then the door -was flung open, and Barth stood on the threshold. He started back in -astonishment, as he caught sight of his unexpected guest. - -“Oh. Mr. Brock?” - -“Yes. Sorry to have routed you out so early; but I came to bring you -word from Miss Howard and the Lady.” - -Barth stepped away from the doorway. - -“Come in,” he said hospitably. “Excuse the look of the place, though.” - -Brock’s keen eyes swept the room with direct, impersonal curiosity, took -note of the half-unpacked boxes, the piles of books, the heaps of -clothing, then moved back to Barth’s face, where they rested with -mirthful, kindly scrutiny. Then he crossed the room and dropped into a -chair by the window. - -“You brought me a message from Miss Howard?” Barth queried tentatively, -after a pause which his companion seemed disinclined to break. - -“Not so much a message as a—a suggestion,” Brock answered, with a -hesitation so short as to escape the Englishman’s ear. “Miss Howard and -the Lady are going to market, this morning, and I gathered, from what -Miss Howard said, that she would like you to be on hand.” - -“To—market?” - -“Yes. She evidently thought you understood it was an engagement. The -only question seemed to be about the hour.” - -“Oh. What time do they go?” - -“Ten.” - -“And now?” - -“It is past nine now.” - -Barth stepped to the table and glanced at his watch. - -“Fifteen past nine,” he read. “There is plenty of time. And you are sure -Miss Howard wanted me?” - -“Perfectly,” Brock answered, with brazen mendacity. - -“How strange!” observed Mr. Cecil Barth. - -“Strange that she should want you? Oh, not at all,” Brock demurred -politely. - -“Oh, no. Strange that she shouldn’t have mentioned it before.” - -“Didn’t she say anything about it, last night?” Brock inquired. - -“No. At least, I don’t remember it.” - -“It may have slipped her mind. You had a good deal to talk over, I -believe.” - -“What do people do, when they go to market?” Barth queried, with sudden -and intentional inconsequence. - -“Buy things.” - -“Yes. But what sort of things?” - -“Haven’t you been down into the market yet?” Brock asked, as he craned -his neck to watch two girls passing in the street beneath. - -“Oh, no. Why should I?” - -“Strangers generally do; it is quite one of the sights.” - -“Do you mind if I begin dressing, Mr. Brock? What sort of sights?” - -“Oh, cabbages, and pigs, and country things like that.” - -Barth’s brows knotted, partly over his dressing, partly over his effort -to grasp the situation. - -“And is Miss Howard going down to—to look at those things?” he -inquired. - -“No, man; of course not. She is going down with the Lady to buy them.” - -“To—buy—a pig?” Barth spoke in three detached sentences. - -Brock smothered his merriment according to the best of his ability. - -“The Lady will do the buying. Miss Howard goes to look on.” - -“And does she expect me to look on, too?” - -“Certainly.” - -Barth sat with his shoe horn hanging loosely in his hand. - -“But, Mr. Brock, I don’t know a bad pig from a good one,” he protested -hastily. - -“Oh, it’s quite easy to tell. Just pinch him a bit about the ribs. If he -is fat and squeals nicely, he’ll go. But, as I understand it, you aren’t -to do the marketing. You are expected to carry the basket for them.” - -Barth looked up from his second shoe. - -“The basket?” - -“Yes. Women here take their baskets with them.” - -“And get them filled?” - -“Surely. Then they bring them home.” - -Barth finished the tying of his shoestrings. Then he rose and picked up -his collar. - -“Oh, really!” he remonstrated, as he fumbled with the buttonholes. “Miss -Howard can’t be expecting that I am going to bring a pig home in my -arms.” - -Brock rose. - -“It is never safe to predict what a pretty woman will expect next,” he -said oracularly. “I usually make a point of being ready for almost -anything. As far as Miss Howard is concerned, I’d rather carry a pig for -her than a bunch of roses for some women.” - -This time, Brock’s words rang true. Moreover, they dismissed any doubts -lingering in the mind of his companion. - -“Oh, rather!” he assented, with some enthusiasm. - -A mocking light came into Brock’s clear eyes. - -“I am glad you agree with me. You knew her before I did, I believe.” - -“Yes. At Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré. Miss Howard was very good to me, when I -was there.” Over the top of his half-fastened collar, Barth spoke with -simple dignity. - -Brock liked the tone. - -“I can imagine it, Barth,” he answered, with a sudden wave of liking for -the loyal little Englishman before him. “Both St. Jacques and I would -gladly have offered up our ankles at the shrine of Sainte Anne, for such -a chance as yours.” - -“What kind of a chance do you mean?” - -“Chance to be coddled by Miss Howard, of course.” - -Barth slid the string of his glasses over his head, put on his glasses -and looked steadily up at Brock. - -“It was a chance,” he assented gravely. “Chance and the handiwork of the -Good Sainte Anne. It might have meant a good deal to me. Instead, I -threw it all away by my own dulness; and now, instead of having the -advantage of a three-weeks’ acquaintance, I have to start at the very -beginning once more. If, as you are hinting, you and Mr. St. Jacques and -I are on a strife to win the regard of Miss Howard, you and Mr. St. -Jacques have already distanced me in the race.” - -Brock laughed; but his eyes had grown surprisingly gentle. In all his -easy-going life, a life when friends and their confidences had been his -for the asking, few things had touched him as did this direct, simple -expression of trust on the part of Mr. Cecil Barth. Contrary to his -custom, he met confidence with confidence. - -“You’re a good fellow, Barth,” he said heartily. “I am a little out of -the running, myself. I’d like to wish you success, if I could; but St. -Jacques is the older friend.” Then, relenting, he recurred to the object -of his call. “Now see here, Barth,” he added; “you needn’t feel obliged -to go to market. There may be some joke in the matter. Miss Howard -laughed, when she was talking about it. Don’t go, if you don’t wish to. -They can take Tommy.” - -“Oh, but I’d like to go,” Barth interposed hurriedly, as he looked at -his watch. “It is past ten now, Mr. Brock. May I ask you to excuse me?” -And, without waiting for a final word from Brock, he turned and went -dashing down the staircase at a speed which boded little good for an -invalid ankle. - -Ten o’clock, that sunny morning, found Champlain Market the centre of an -eager, jostling, basket-laden throng. As a rule, the Lady sought her -purchases at the market just outside the Saint John Gate. To-day, -however, she had elected to go to the Lower Town, and, true to an old -engagement, Nancy had elected to go with her. It was a novel experience -for the girl, and she wandered up and down at the heels of the Lady, now -staring at the stout old habitant women who, since early dawn, had sat -wedged into their packed carts, knitting away as comfortably as if they -had been surrounded by sofa pillows rather than by pumpkins; at the -round-faced, bundled-up children who guarded the stalls of belated -flowers, of blue-yarn socks and of baskets of every size; at the groups -of men, gathered here and there in the throng, offering to their -possible customers the choice between squealing pigs and squawking fowls -which one and all seemed to be resenting the liberties taken with their -breast-bones. Back of the old stone market building, the carts were -drawn up in long lines; and the board platforms between were heaped with -cabbages and paved with crates. At the north, the little gray spire of -Notre Dame des Victoires guarded the square where, for over two hundred -years, it had done honor to the name of Our Lady and to the memory of -successive victories won, by her protecting care, over invading foes. -Above it all, the black-faced cannon poked its sullen nose over the wall -of the King’s Bastion where, a scarlet patch against the sky, there -fluttered the threefold cross of the Union Jack. - -And still Brock failed to appear. - -“Just like a man!” Nancy said impatiently, as the half-hour struck. “You -are sure Mary understood the message?” - -“She never forgets. I was sorry not to wait, Nancy; but we should have -lost our chance to get anything good. We are late, as it is.” - -“Late! What time does the market open?” - -“By five o’clock. These people have been coming in, all night long. By -five in the morning, the place is full of customers. It is worth the -seeing then.” - -Nancy shivered. - -“Uh! Not at this season of the year. I am not fond of the clammy dawn; -and, down here by the river, it must be deathly. But, in the -meanwhile,—” Again she glanced towards the corner of Little Champlain -Street. - -The Lady laughed. - -“It is no use, Nancy. You are caught in your own trap, and now you must -either go home and send Tommy to me, or else help me to carry home the -basket.” - -“I don’t mind the basket, though I confess I wish I hadn’t urged you to -bring your very largest one. But I am disappointed in Mr. Brock. I -thought he possessed more invention than this. He made me believe he had -some mischief lurking in his brain; and it is very flat and boyish -merely to promise to appear and then not to materialize.” - -“He may have been prevented, at the last minute.” - -“Then,” Nancy responded grimly; “he’d much better have kept to the -letter of his promise and sent a substitute.” - -She was still wandering aimlessly to and fro among the crowd, now -jostled by a packed basket on the arm of a sturdy habitant, now whacked -on the ankle by a hen dangling limply, head downward, from the hand of -the habitant’s wife, now pausing to bargain for a bunch of pale violet -sweet peas or a tiny replica of one of the melon-shaped baskets so -characteristic of the town. All at once, she turned to the Lady. - -“If there isn’t Mr. Barth!” she exclaimed, lapsing, in her surprise, -into the unmistakable vernacular of The States. - -The Lady was deeply absorbed in her final purchase of the day, which, as -it chanced, was a piglet for the morrow’s dinner. Engrossed in the -relative merits of a whole series of piglets of varying dimension, she -was deaf to Nancy’s words. Left to herself, the girl met Barth with an -eager smile. - -“Is it peace, or war?” she asked merrily, as she gave him her hand, -sweet peas and all. - -“Peace, of course. Are the flowers a token of the treaty?” - -“Do you want them?” - -“Oh, rather!” And Barth pulled off his glove to fasten them into the -lapel of his dark blue coat. “I am so sorry to be late, Miss Howard; but -Mr. Brock stopped a little, to talk.” - -“You have seen Mr. Brock, this morning?” - -“Oh, yes. He was in my room.” - -Nancy’s face betrayed her surprise. - -“And did he say anything about market?” - -“He told me you were coming at ten. I meant to be on hand; but he -delayed me, and, when I finally started, I missed my way and came out -over by the custom house. I must have taken a wrong turning.” - -“Perhaps. But where is Mr. Brock?” - -“I think he went to his office.” - -There was a little pause. - -“Jolly crowd, this,” Barth commented at length. “Where is the Lady?” - -“Over there.” Nancy pointed to the Lady, still bending over the crate of -piglets. - -“Oh. And those are the pigs? Oughtn’t we to go across and help her?” - -Nancy laughed. - -“I am afraid I’m not a judge of them,” she demurred. - -Barth’s voice dropped confidentially. - -“Neither am I. Still, as long as I came to help her, I think it would be -rather decent to see if I can do anything about it, now I am here.” - -“Oh,” Nancy said blankly. “Was the Lady expecting you?” - -Barth’s gratified smile completed her mystification. - -“Oh, rather! I wouldn’t have felt at liberty without, you know. That’s -what the Lady is for.” - -A moment later, the Lady started in surprise. Stick and gloves in hand -and a frown of deep consideration on his boyish brow, Barth suddenly -knelt down at her side and shut his slim fingers upon the flank of the -nearest piglet, which gave vocal expression to its displeasure. - -“Oh. Good morning,” he added, not to the piglet, however, but to the -Lady. “I think you will find this little chap quite satisfactory.” - -For an instant, Nancy had difficulty in repressing her mirth. Then, from -the Lady’s manifest astonishment at Barth’s appearing, from Barth’s own -manner, and from her memory of Brock’s final words, she saw the hand of -the young Canadian in the situation. This was the substitute whom Brock -had promised. She determined to put her theory to the test. - -“Mr. Brock was very good to act as our messenger,” she suggested -craftily. - -“Rather! He is a good fellow, anyway,” Barth answered, as he rose and -dusted off his knees. “I like the English Canadians, myself. They are a -grade above the French ones. But, do you know, Mr. Brock only just saved -me from disgracing myself again. I was so absorbed in—in the other -things we talked over, last night, that I quite forgot about the trip to -market, this morning.” - -For a minute, as she looked into Barth’s animated face, Nancy waxed hot -with indignation over Brock’s childish trick. She half resolved to warn -the young Englishman against the species of hazing which he was called -upon to undergo. Then she held her peace. Her warnings would count for -more, if she levelled them at Brock, rather than at Brock’s victim. Even -her limited experience of Barth had assured her that, in certain -directions, his understanding was finite. It would never occur to his -insular mind that his very naïveté would make him a more tempting prey -to the jovial young Canadian. - -“Never mind, as long as you came at all, Mr. Barth,” she replied -lightly. “It would have been a pity for you to have missed the sight. We -couldn’t very well wait for you, because the Lady had to come on -business, not pleasure.” - -“And is this all?” Barth said, as the Lady turned from the piglet. -“Where is the basket?” - -“There.” And Nancy, as she pointed to the heaped assortment of garden -stuffs, suddenly resolved to put Barth’s chivalry to the test. - -The test was weighty, unlovely of outline and unsavory of odor; -nevertheless, the young Britisher did not shrink. Without a glance -around him, Mr. Cecil Barth bent over the great basket and passed its -handles over the curve of his elbow. - -“Shall we go home by the steps?” he asked. “Or do you take the lift?” - -Then the Lady interfered. - -“I go to the nearest cab-stand,” she replied promptly. “I find I must -dash over to the other market as fast as I can go. There are cabs just -around the corner, Mr. Barth, if you are willing to put my basket into -one. Then, if you and Miss Howard will excuse me for deserting the -expedition, I will leave you to walk home together.” - -And Nancy’s answering smile assured the Lady of her full forgiveness. - - - CHAPTER SIXTEEN - -“I love all things British, saving and excepting their manners and their -mortar,” Nancy soliloquized. - -Nancy’s temper was ruffled, that morning. As she had left the table, -Barth had followed her to the parlor where, apparently apropos of an -inoffensive Frenchman crossing the Place d’Armes, he had been drawn into -strictures concerning American and French peculiarities of speech and -manner. The talk had been impersonal; nevertheless, Nancy had been quick -to discern that its text lay in the growing friendship between herself -and St. Jacques. For a time, she had listened in silence to the -Britisher’s accusing monologue. Then her temper had given way -completely. Flapping the American flag full in his face, she had loosed -the American eagle and promptly routed Barth and driven him from the -field, with the British Lion trudging dejectedly at his heels. - -“I want him to understand that he’s not to say _American_ to me, in any -such tone as that!” Nancy muttered vindictively, as she pinned on her -hat. - -Then she went out to walk herself into a good temper. - -The good temper was still conspicuous by its absence, when, regardless -of appearances, she dropped down in the grass by the hospital gate, and -fell to picking the scraps of mortar out of the meshes of her rough -cloth gown. - -“I believe I am all kinds of an idiot,” she continued to herself -explosively. “First, Joe’s letter rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t see -how he could be so stupid as to imagine I’m homesick. Of course, I am -glad he is coming up here; but an extra man, in any relation, does have -a tendency to complicate things. And then Mr. Brock didn’t come to -breakfast. I know he was cross, last night, because I took Mr. Barth’s -part. And now Mr. Barth has made me lose my temper again. I believe he -does it, just for the sake of seeing me abase myself afterwards. Dear -me! Everybody is cross, and I am the crossest of the lot.” - -Beside her on the grass, the shadow of the Union Jack above the hospital -moved idly to and fro. Behind her was the low, squat bulk of the third -Martello Tower whose crumbling mortar Nancy was even now removing from -her clothing. The fourth Martello Tower, hidden somewhere within the -dingy confines of Saint Sauveur, had eluded all her efforts to find it; -the other two had been too obviously converted to twentieth-century -purposes. This had looked more inviting, and Nancy had spent a chilly -hour in its depths. By turning her back upon the dripping icehouse in -its southern edge, and focussing her mind upon the mammoth central -column which supported its arching roof, she had been able to force -herself backward into the days when a Martello Tower was a thing for an -invading army to reckon with. In the magazine beneath, the drip from the -icehouse had spoiled the illusion; but the open platform above, albeit -now snugly roofed in, still offered its battlements and its trio of -dismounted cannon to her cynical gaze. Nancy left the dim interior, -bored, but sternly just. In some moods and with certain companions, even -the third Martello Tower might be interesting. Meantime, she was -conscious of a distinct wish that the relics of the crumbling past might -not have such marked affinity for her shoulder-blades. - -“Miss Howard!” - -She looked up. Cap in hand, St. Jacques was standing before her. - -“I am glad I have found you,” he added directly. “I was wishing that -something good might happen.” - -Nancy’s smile broadened to a laugh. - -“Are you cross, too?” she queried, without troubling herself to rise. - -“Very,” St. Jacques assented briefly. - -“I am so glad. Let’s be cross together.” - -“Here?” - -“Why not?” - -The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. - -“I don’t like the place. The associations are not pleasant.” - -“I don’t see why. It looks a very comfortable place to be ill.” - -“Yes; but who wants to think of being ill?” - -“Nobody,” Nancy returned philosophically. “Still, now and then we must, -you know. Witness Mr. Barth.” - -St. Jacques smiled. - -“Yes. But even Mr. Barth had a good nurse.” - -“Don’t be too sure of that. Even my level best is none too even,” Nancy -replied enigmatically, with scant consideration for the alien tongue of -her companion. - -He ignored her words. - -“If I should be ill, would you take care of me?” he asked suddenly. - -Still laughing, the girl shook her head. - -“Never. I like you altogether too well, M. St. Jacques, to risk your -life with my ministrations. Instead of that, though, I will come out -here to see you as often as you will grant me admission.” - -“Not here. They would never grant me admission in the first place,” St. -Jacques responded dryly. - -“Why, then?” - -“Because I am Catholic.” - -“Oh, how paltry!” Nancy burst out in hot indignation. - -“It is true, however.” - -With a sweep of her arm, Nancy pointed to the Union Jack whose scarlet -folds stained the sky line. - -“Then the sooner they pull that down, the better,” she said scornfully. -“I thought that the British flag stood for religious freedom.” - -“But you are not Catholic,” St. Jacques said slowly. - -“What difference does that make? I am not a Seven-Day Baptist, either. -Neither fact makes me ignore the rights of my friends who are.” - -St. Jacques still stood looking down at her. His face was unusually -grave, that morning; and it seemed to Nancy that his swarthy cheeks were -flushed more than it was their wont to be. - -“You have friends who are Catholics?” he asked. - -“One, I hope,” she answered quietly. Then she rose to her feet. “What -are you doing out here at this hour?” she added. - -“Walking, to tire myself,” he answered. “Will you come?” - -For her only answer, she dropped into step at his side, and they turned -down the steep slope leading into Saint Sauveur, crossed Saint Roch and -the Dorchester Bridge and came out on the open road to Beauport. - -Never a garrulous companion, St. Jacques was more silent than ever, that -morning, and Nancy let him have his way. Moreover, at times she was -conscious of something restful in the long pauses which came in her talk -with St. Jacques. When he chose, the young Frenchman spoke easily and -well. Apparently, however, he saw no need of talking, unless he had -something to say. In their broken talk and their long silences, Nancy -had gained a better understanding of St. Jacques, a more perfect -sympathy with his point of view and his mood than she had gained of -Brock in all their hours of chattering intercourse. - -For a long mile, they walked on without speaking. Shoulder to shoulder, -they had gone tramping along the narrow plank walk with the sure rhythm -of perfectly adapted step. - -“How well we walk together!” Nancy said, suddenly breaking the silence. - -“Yes,” St. Jacques assented briefly. “I have always noticed it.” - -Some men would have used her random words as the theme for a sentimental -speech. To St. Jacques, they were too obvious; emotion should not be -wasted upon anything so matter of fact. Long since, Nancy had become -accustomed to that phase of his mind. It gave a certain restfulness to -their intercourse to know that St. Jacques would never read unintended -meanings into her simplest utterances. At first, she had supposed him -too stolid, too earnestly intent upon his own ends to waste sentiment -upon herself. Lately, she had begun to doubt; and she confessed to -herself that the doubt was sweet. - -“You said you were cross, to-day?” St. Jacques broke the silence, this -time. - -“Yes, detestably.” - -“For any especial reason?” - -“How uncomplimentary of you to suggest that I am ever cross without -reason!” Nancy rebuked him. - -“What is the reason?” he asked coolly. - -“There are several of them, all tangled up together.” - -“And, as usual, Barth is one of them,” St. Jacques supplemented. - -“Perhaps; and Mr. Brock is another,” Nancy replied unexpectedly. - -“Brock? What has he done?” - -“Nothing. I did it. At least, I tried to lecture him for playing tricks -on Mr. Barth, and—” - -“One is always at liberty to play tricks with a monkey,” St. Jacques -interpolated quietly. - -“Mr. Barth isn’t a monkey,” Nancy retorted. - -“No? Then what is he?” - -“The best little Englishman that ever lived,” she answered promptly. - -The lower lip of St. Jacques rolled out into his odd little smile. - -“Then the game surely ought to be in the hands of the French,” he -responded. - -“You’re not fair to Mr. Barth,” Nancy said, as she stooped to pull off a -spray of scarlet maple leaves from a bush at her feet. - -“Perhaps not. Neither are you.” - -“Yes, I am. He hasn’t a more loyal friend in America, M. St. Jacques.” - -“I know that. It is not always fair to be too loyal.” - -“Why not?” - -“Because it makes one wonder whether the game is worth the candle,” the -Frenchman replied imperturbably. “One doesn’t fly to defend the -strongest spot on the city wall.” - -Nancy looked up into his dark face. - -“No; and, in the same way, I’ve not fought a battle in your behalf since -we met.” - -“No?” - -“At least—” she added hurriedly, as she recalled stray sentences of her -talk with Barth, that morning. “But in a way you have told the truth. I -have fought Mr. Barth’s battles with you all, until I sometimes feel as -if I were wholly responsible for the man.” - -“Then why not let him fight his own battles?” - -A torn red leaf fluttered from Nancy’s fingers. - -“Because he won’t. It’s not that he is a coward; it’s not that he is -conceited or too sure of himself. It is only that he is like a great, -overgrown child who never stops to think of the impression he is making. -Sometimes it is refreshing; sometimes it makes one long to box him up -and send him back to be tethered out on a chain attached to Westminster -Abbey. Even that wouldn’t do, though, for the Poets’ Corner has made -room for an American or two. Mr. Barth is queer and innocent and, just -now and then, superlatively stupid. And yet, M. St. Jacques, I don’t -believe he ever had an ignoble idea from the day of his birth up to -to-day. He is absolutely generous and high-minded, and one can forgive a -good deal for the sake of that.” - -Flushed with her eager championship, she paused and smiled up into her -companion’s eves. His answering smile drove the gravity from his face. - -“Yes,” he assented; “and, from your very persistence, you imply that -there is a good deal to forgive.” - -“Something, perhaps,” she assented in her turn; “but it is largely -negative. Meanwhile, he isn’t fair game for you and Mr. Brock.” - -“Why not?” - -“Because he believes everything you tell him; because it never once -enters his mind that you would find it worth your while to torment him. -If he lets you alone, he expects you to do the same by him.” - -St. Jacques made no answer. With his dark eyes fixed on the broad river -at his right hand, he marched steadily along by Nancy’s side until the -quaint little roadside cross of temperance was far behind them. Then he -said abruptly,— - -“Miss Howard, I wish I knew just how well you like that fellow.” - -Nancy’s thoughts, like her steps, had lain parallel to his. She -responded now without hesitation,— - -“I wish I knew, myself; but I don’t.” - -For an instant, St. Jacques removed his eyes from the river. He smiled, -as he moved them back again. - -Nancy’s next words showed that her mind had taken a backward leap. - -“You said you were walking to tire yourself?” she said interrogatively. - -“Yes. Am I also tiring you?” St. Jacques answered, with instant -courtesy. - -“No. I always dislike the turning around to go home by the same road.” - -“Then we can walk on to Beauport church, and take the tram back,” he -suggested. - -“As you like,” she agreed. “But why tire yourself?” - -The thin, firm lips shut into a resolute line. Then St. Jacques replied -briefly,— - -“I have been lying awake too much for my pleasure.” - -“Thinking of your sins?” Nancy asked gayly. - -“Yes, and of some other things.” - -“Pleasant things, I hope.” - -The Frenchman’s brows contracted. - -“I have had dreams that were pleasanter.” - -Nancy stole a sidelong glance at him, saw the expression in his eyes, -and, turning, looked him full in the face. - -“M. St. Jacques,” she said quietly; “something is wrong.” - -He smiled, as he shook his head; but his eyes did not light. - -“There is no use of denying it. I have been a nurse, you know,” she -persisted laughingly; “and I have learned to watch for symptoms. Men -don’t frown like that and beetle their brows, without some cause or -other. Does something worry you; or aren’t you feeling well?” - -Without breaking his even pace, St. Jacques turned and looked steadily -into her earnest, sympathetic face. This time, his dark eyes lighted in -response to the friendly look in her own. - -“Perhaps it may be a little of both,” he answered quietly. “Even then, -there is no reason one should be a worry to one’s friends.” - -The pause which followed was a short one. Then St. Jacques roused -himself and laughed. - -“Really, Miss Howard,” he added, as he brushed his thick hair backward -from the scarlet gash in his forehead; “it is only that I started with -headache, this morning. I was too dull for work; but either Nurse Howard -or the Good Sainte Anne has made me forget it.” - -And Nancy smiled back at him in token of perfect understanding. She had -not heard his last inaudible words,— - -“Or perhaps it may be the work of good Saint Joseph.” - -In fact, Nancy Howard as yet had gained no inkling of the especial -attributes of Saint Joseph, nor did she suspect the part that the good -old saint was beginning to play in the coming events of her life. To -Nancy’s mind, May was always May. So long as it lasted, there was no -reason for looking forward into the coming month of June. The future -tense was created solely for those whose present was not absolutely -good. - - - CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - -Confronted by a tea-tray and a Britisher in combination, Nancy Howard -was conscious of a certain abashment. - -At home in New York, she was accustomed to administer informal tea by -means of a silver ball and a spirit lamp. These two diminutive pots, the -one of water and the other of tea, left her in a blissful state of -uncertainty whether she was to measure them out, half and half, or, -emptying the teapot at the first round, fill it up with the water in the -hopes of decocting a feeble second cup. Moreover, Nancy preferred lemon -in her tea, and, worst of all, there were no sugar tongs. Nancy wondered -vaguely whether Englishwomen were wont to make tea in brand-new gloves, -or whether Englishmen were less finical than their transatlantic -brethren. - -Barth, his glasses on his nose, watched her intently. His very -intentness increased her abashment. It had been at his suggestion that -they had gone to the little tea shop, that afternoon, and Nancy had no -wish to bring disgrace either upon Barth or herself, in the presence of -those of Quebec’s fair daughters who, at the tables around them, were -sipping tea and gossip by turns. - -Devoutly praying that she might not upset the cream jug, nor forget to -call the sugarbowl a _basin_, Nancy at last succeeded in filling Barth’s -cup. - -“How scriptural!” he observed, as he took it from her hand. - -“In what way?” - -He pointed to the pale ring of overflow in the saucer. - -“It runneth over,” he quoted gravely. - -Nancy developed a literal turn of mind. She did it now and then; it was -always unexpected, and it left her companion of the moment in the -conversational lurch. - -“That means happiness, not tea,” she said calmly. - -Barth looked at her inquiringly. Then, with unwonted swiftness, he -rallied. - -“Sometimes the two are synonymous,” he said quietly. - -But Nancy turned wayward. - -“Not when they are watered down. But you must admit that Americans give -good measure.” - -Barth smiled across the table at her, in manifest content. - -“Of both,” he asserted, as he stirred his tea. - -“Have a biscuit,” Nancy advised him suddenly. - -“A—Would you like me to order some? I dare say they have them out -there.” - -Nancy rested her elbows on the table with a protesting bump. - -“There you go Britishing me again!” she said hotly. “You said you -wouldn’t do it. Even if I am an American, I do know enough not to say -_cracker_. That was one of the few lessons I learned at my mother’s -knee. But there aren’t any cracker-biscuits here. I was referring to -these others.” - -Barth glanced anxiously about the table. Aside from the tray, there were -two plates upon the table, and one of the two held tiny strips of -toasted bread. All told, there were exactly eight of the strips, each -amounting to a mouthful and a half, and Nancy had just been out at the -Cove Fields, playing golf. - -Nancy pointed to the other plate. - -“I mean those—biscuits,” she said conclusively and with emphasis. - -“Those? Oh. But those aren’t biscuits.” - -“What do you call them, then? Buns?” Nancy inquired, with scathing -curiosity. - -“Buns? Oh, no. Those are scones.” - -This time, Nancy fairly bounced in her chair. - -“They are nothing in this world but common, every-day American soda -biscuits,” she said, as she helped herself to the puffiest and the -brownest. “You are in America now, Mr. Barth, and there is no sense in -your putting British names to our cooking. Will you have a biscuit?” - -“Oh, yes. But really, you know, they are scones,” he protested. “My -mother nearly always has them.” - -Nancy cast anxious eyes at the drop of molten butter that was trickling -along the base of her thumb. - -“And so do we,” she replied firmly; “only we eat them at breakfast, with -a napkin. I don’t mean that we actually eat the napkin,” she explained -hastily, in mercy for the limitations of her companion’s understanding. -“But, really, these are very buttery.” - -Barth sucked his forefinger with evident relish. - -“Oh, rather!” he assented. “That’s what makes them so good.” - -Nancy furtively rescued her handkerchief from her temporary substitute -for a pocket. Then, bending forward, she arranged four of the strips of -toast around the margin of her saucer. - -“What’s that for?” Barth queried, at a loss to know whether the act was -another Americanism, or merely a Nancyism pure and simple. - -“We are going to go halves on our rations,” Nancy answered coolly. “I am -just as hungry as you are, and I don’t propose to have you eating more -than your share of things.” - -“Would you like to have me order some more scones?” he asked -courteously. - -For the space of a full minute, Nancy bestowed her entire attention upon -her teacup. Then she lifted the white of one eye to Barth’s questioning -face. - -“Oh, rather!” she responded nonchalantly. - -At the tables around them, Quebec’s fair daughters paused in their tea -and their gossip to cast a questioning glance in the direction of -Barth’s mirth. As a rule, masculine mirth had scant place in the cosy -little tea shop. In summer, it was visited by a procession of American -tourists who imbibed its tea in much the same solemn spirit as they -breathed the incense of the Basilica, inhaled the crisp breeze over Cape -Diamond and tasted the vigorous brew that ripened in the vaults of the -old intendant’s palace. When the tourists had betaken themselves -southward and Quebec once more began to resume its customary life, the -shop became a purely feminine function. It was an ideal place for a dish -of gossip in the autumnal twilight. The walls hung thick with ancient -plates and mirrors, venerable teapots and jugs stood in serried ranks -along the shelf about the top of the room, and a quaint assortment of -rugs nearly covered the floor. Here and there about the wide room were -scattered little claw-footed tables whose shiny tops were covered with -squares of homespun linen, brown and soft as a bit of Indian pongee. Not -even the blazing electric lights could give an air of modernness to the -place, and Nancy, in the intervals of her struggles with the tray, -looked about her with complete content. - -Barth possessed certain of the attributes of a successful general. Wide -experience had taught him to administer fees freely and, as a rule, with -exceeding discretion. As a result, he and Nancy were in possession of -the most desirable table in the room, close beside the deep casement -overlooking Saint Louis Street. Nancy, the light falling full on her -eager face, over her radiant hair and on her dark cloth gown, could -watch at her will the loitering passers in the street beneath, or the -idle groups at the tables around her. Barth, his own face in shadow, -could see but one thing. That one thing, however, was quite enough, for -it was Nancy. - -More than a week had passed since the morning in the market. To Mr. -Cecil Barth, the week had seemed like a year, and yet shorter than many -a single day of his past experience. Their walk homeward from the market -had been by way of Saint Roch and the old French fortifications, and -their conversation had been as devious as their path. Nevertheless, -Barth, as he sat in his room applying liniment and red flannel to his -aching ankle, felt that they had been moving straight towards a perfect -understanding and good-fellowship. He had left Nancy, the night before, -convinced of her generosity, but equally convinced that the worst hour -of his life had been the hour when he took the train for Sainte -Anne-de-Beaupré. Now, as he meditatively contemplated the pool of -liniment on the carpet at his feet, he acknowledged to himself that the -Good Sainte Anne had wrought a mighty series of miracles in his behalf, -and he offered up a prayer, as devout as it was incoherent, that she -might not remove her favor until she had wrought the mightiest miracle -of all. Then, his prayer ended and his ankle anointed, he fell to -whistling contentedly to himself as he tied up his shoe and brushed his -yellow hair in preparation for dinner. - -As far as possible, for the next week, he had been a fixture at Nancy’s -side. As yet, much walking was out of the question for him; but, within -the narrow limits of the city wall, or under the roof of The Maple Leaf, -neither Brock nor St. Jacques were able to sever him from his -self-imposed connection with Nancy’s apron string. He took small part in -the conversation; with Brock, at least, he manifested a complete -indifference to the course of events. It was merely that he was there, -and that there he meant to stay, filling in the hiatuses of Nancy’s -time, answering her lightest appeals for attention and now and then -adding a pithy word of support to even her most wayward opinions. It was -not the first time that an invading British force had encamped about a -fortress at Quebec. Wolfe at the head of his army showed no more gritty -determination to win than did that quiet, simple-minded Britisher, Mr. -Cecil Barth. - -And, as the October days crept by, Nancy Howard grew increasingly -nervous, St. Jacques increasingly annoyed, and Reginald Brock -increasingly amused at the whole situation. - -That morning, Barth had sat for a long hour, staring thoughtfully at the -yellow-striped paper of his room, while he pondered the entire case. One -by one, he passed over the events of the past six weeks in detailed -review. He recalled those first days in Quebec, when his one idea had -been to avoid the unsought society of the whole cordial American tribe. -He bethought himself contentedly of his first aversion for Adolphe St. -Jacques, which had been coördinate, in point of time, with his -introduction to the dining-room of The Maple Leaf. He remembered the -sunshiny morning which, following on the heels of a week of drizzle, had -lured him forth to Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré and to his ultimate -destruction. - -Up to that time, his memories were orderly and logical. From that point -onward, they fell into chaos. Days of grinding pain and intense -dreariness were lightened by the sound of Nancy’s low voice and the -touch of Nancy’s firm, supple fingers upon his injured foot. True, she -had been an American; but, even at that early stage of his experience, -it had begun to dawn upon Mr. Cecil Barth that, under proper conditions -and in their proper places, Americans might have certain pleasing -attributes. Then Nancy had left him. In the lonely days which followed, -Barth had acknowledged to himself that, for Americans of a proper type, -the proper conditions and the proper places bore direct connection with -his own individual bottle of liniment. The acknowledgment was reached in -the midst of his own efforts to establish relations with his own ankle -which, all at once, seemed to him peculiarly remote and elusive. And -then? Then he had returned to The Maple Leaf, and had found Nancy there, -and she was the same Nancy, and there was a very jolly little tea shop -in Saint Louis Street. At that point in his musings, Mr. Cecil Barth had -seized his cap and rushed down the stairs of his ducal home. - -Only once, as he was crossing through the Ring, did it occur to his -mind, as a possible factor in the case, that, though a younger son, his -departure for America had been attended by the wailing of a large chorus -of mothers. Even then, he dismissed the thought as unworthy of Nancy and -of himself. Details of that kind entered into the present situation not -at all. - -Fate was all in his favor, that morning. He found Nancy quite alone, -and, as a result of his finding her, Nancy had been confronted by the -tea-tray and the Britisher in combination. - -“I don’t see what you are laughing at,” she said plaintively, in answer -to Barth’s merriment. “I am only trying to make my meaning unmistakable -to you.” - -Barth laughed again. - -“Oh, in time you would make a fairly good Englishwoman,” he said -reassuringly. - -Only Nancy’s super-acute ear could have discovered the note of -condescension in his voice. She set down her teacup with a thump. - -“Thank you; but I have no aspirations in that direction,” she responded -shortly. - -“How strange!” Barth observed, as he took another scone, opened it and -peered in to see which was the more buttery side. - -“I don’t see anything strange at all,” Nancy argued. “Who wants to be -English?” - -Barth shut up the scone like a box, and laid it down on the edge of his -saucer. - -“I do.” - -“Well, you are. You ought to be satisfied.” - -In hot haste, Barth felt about for his glasses; but they were tangled in -his buttons, and he missed them. - -“Oh, rather!” he assented hurriedly. “Do have another scone.” - -Notwithstanding her indignation, Nancy laughed. Barth’s accent was so -like that of an elderly uncle bribing a naughty child to goodness by -means of a stick of candy. - -“Thank you, I always like hot biscuits,” she assented. Then, for the -second time, she put her elbows on the table and sat resting her chin -upon her clasped hands. “Mr. Barth,” she said meditatively; “has it ever -occurred to you that I may possibly be proud of having been born an -American?” - -Barth peered up at her in near-sighted curiosity. - -“Oh, no,” he answered. - -Nancy’s eyes were fixed thoughtfully upon him, taking in every detail of -his earnest face, honest and boyish, and likable withal. - -“Well,” she reiterated slowly; “I am.” - -“And you wouldn’t rather be English, if you could?” Barth queried, with -an eagerness for which she was at a loss to account. - -“No. Why should I?” - -He sat looking steadily at her, while the scarlet color mounted across -his cheeks and brow. Then even Nancy’s ears could not fail to -distinguish the minor cadence in his voice, as he said, in slow -regret,— - -“I—I am sorry. I really can’t see why.” - - - CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - -“And still,” Dr. Howard added cheerily; “I wouldn’t give up hope yet.” - -Adolphe St. Jacques turned from a listless contemplation of the habitant -in the courtyard, and looked the doctor full in the face. - -“You think—?” he said interrogatively. - -The doctor’s nod was plainly reluctant. - -“Yes; but I do not know. It is impossible to tell. If I were in your -place, I would hold on as long as I could, on the chance. Meanwhile, -take things as easily as you can, and don’t worry.” - -“It is sometimes harder to take things easily than to—” - -St. Jacques was interrupted by a knock at the door, followed by a call -from Nancy. - -“May I come in, daddy?” - -Hastily the young Frenchman turned to the doctor. - -“And you won’t speak to her about it yet?” he urged. - -“No. I promise you to wait until you give me permission.” - -“Thank you,” St. Jacques answered. “It is better to keep silent for the -present. Still, it is a relief to have told you, and to know your -opinion.” - -“Oh, daddy, I’m coming. I want to talk to you,” Nancy reiterated. - -Noiselessly the doctor slid back the bolt on the panelled door, just as -Nancy turned the knob. It was done so deftly that the girl pushed open -the door and entered the room, without in the least suspecting that she -had walked in upon a secret conference. - -“You here?” she said, nodding gayly to St. Jacques. - -“Yes; but I am just going away.” - -“Don’t hurry. I only came to ask my father a question or two. How much -longer are we going to stay here, daddy?” - -The doctor pressed together, tip to tip, the fingers of his two hands. - -“I am sorry, Nancy,” he answered a little deprecatingly; “but I am -afraid it will take me fully three weeks longer to finish my work.” - -Her face fell. - -“Is that all?” - -“But I thought you were in a hurry to get home.” - -“I was; but I’m not,” she answered, in terse contradiction. - -St. Jacques laughed, as he bowed in exaggerated gratitude. - -“Canada thanks you for the compliment, Miss Howard.” - -“It’s not so much Canada as Quebec, not so much Quebec as it is The -Maple Leaf,” she replied. “It is going to be a great wrench, when I tear -myself out of this place. But it will be three weeks at least, daddy?” - -“Fully that.” - -Nancy twisted the letter in her hand. - -“I’ve heard again from Joe, and he wants to come, the last of the week,” -she said slowly. - -St. Jacques caught the note of discontent in her voice and smiled. It -escaped the doctor, however, and he made haste to answer,— - -“But we are always glad to see Joe. How long will he stay?” - -“Two or three days. He has never been here, and he expects me to show -him the sights of Quebec. Imagine me, M. St. Jacques, doing the tourist -patter, as I take him the grand round!” Then she turned back to her -father. “Joe obviously has something on his mind, daddy. You don’t -suppose it is a case of Persis Routh.” - -The doctor laughed. - -“Jealous, Nancy?” - -“Of course I am. Joe is my especial property, you know. Besides, I don’t -like Persis.” - -The doctor laughed again. - -“Neither do I. Still, she is wonderfully pretty.” - -“Yes,” Nancy added disconsolately; “and she doesn’t have red hair and a -consequent pain in her temper. Daddy?” - -“Yes.” With his back to the two young people, the doctor was cramming -some papers into his limp portfolio. - -“Were you going to walk with me, this afternoon?” - -“No, my dear; I wasn’t.” - -“But you promised.” - -“When?” - -“At dinner, yesterday. You promised that, if I would let you off then, -you would go with me, to-day.” - -“Did I? I am sorry. Really, Nancy, I can’t go.” - -“But it is a perfect day.” - -“I don’t doubt it; but I have an appointment with the ghost of -Monseigneur Laval. Both his time and mine are precious.” - -“But I want to go,” Nancy said, with a suspicion of a pout. - -“Where?” - -“Out to Sillery.” - -The doctor looked at her in benign rebuke. - -“Nancy, it is eight miles to Sillery and back, and your father is short -of wind. Even if Monseigneur Laval’s ghost were not calling me, I -couldn’t be tempted to take any such tramp as that.” - -Just then, though apparently by chance, St. Jacques stepped forward. The -doctor’s eyes lighted, as they fell upon this possible substitute. - -“You’d better ask M. St. Jacques to go, Nancy. I was just advising him -to be out in the open air as much as possible.” - -Nancy’s spine stiffened slightly, but quite perceptibly. Much as she -liked St. Jacques and enjoyed his society, it was no part of her plan to -accept his escort, when it was offered by a third person. - -“M. St. Jacques has lectures and things to go to, daddy,” she said, with -an accent of calm rebuke. - -St. Jacques started to speak; but the doctor forestalled him. - -“Then he’d better cut the lectures. There may be such a thing as working -too hard.” - -Nancy felt a swift longing to administer personal chastisement to her -father. She wondered if good men were, of their very goodness, bound to -be unduly guileless. She bit her lip. Then she smiled sweetly at St. -Jacques. - -“But M. St. Jacques may have other plans for the afternoon.” - -This time, the Frenchman took the matter into his own hands. - -“As soon as it becomes my turn to speak—” he interpolated. - -“Well?” Nancy inquired obdurately. - -“I should like to say that I have nothing to do, this afternoon; that I -was wishing for a walk, and that no other comrade would be half so -enjoyable as Miss Nancy Howard.” - -“Oh,” Nancy responded. “Is that all?” - -“It is enough. Will you go?” - -She hesitated. - -“If my father hasn’t decoyed you into the trap, quite against your -will.” - -St. Jacques raised his brows. - -“Did you ever know me to say things for the mere sake of being polite?” - -“No,” Nancy said honestly; “I never did.” - -“Then where is your hat?” - -Nancy laughed. Then she departed to wrestle with her hat pins, while the -good doctor rubbed his hands with pleasure over the successful tact with -which he had won his uninterrupted afternoon. - -A round hour later, they stood on the church steps, looking down upon -Sillery Cove. One starlit night, long years before, a young general, -indomitable in the presence of mortal disease as in the face of an -impregnable foe, had dropped down the river to land at that spot and, -scaling the cliff, to fight his way to his victorious death. Now the -dropping tide had left a broad beach, and the Cove lay in heavy shadow; -but, beyond, the open stream flashed blue in the sunlight. Full to the -northward, the windows in the rifle factory caught the light and tossed -it back to them, dazzling as the glory which Wolfe, landing in the Cove, -was fated to find awaiting him upon those selfsame Plains. Still farther -beyond, the rock city lay, a gray mound against the vivid blue of the -distant hills, and above its crest, even from afar, Nancy could -distinguish the blood-red dot which flutters each day from dawn to dusk -above the cannon on the King’s Bastion. - -“Do you care to see the inside of the church?” St. Jacques asked her. - -“Of course. I may never come here again, and I am growing to love your -churches,” Nancy answered, suddenly calling herself back from a dream of -the day when the golden lilies floated above the Citadel, and of the -night when the fleet of English boats crept noiselessly up the river to -face—and win—a forlorn hope of victory. Then abruptly she faced St. -Jacques. “Bigot or no Bigot, right or wrong, my sympathies are sometimes -with the French,” she said. “Wolfe was a hero; but I can’t help siding -with the under dog, even if he is coated with gold and fat with bones.” - -St. Jacques smiled at her outburst. - -“And the under dog is always grateful,” he replied briefly. “Come!” - -Cap in hand, he led the way into the empty church, made his swift -genuflection before the altar, and turned to look at Nancy. The girl -stood a step or two in the rear, glancing about her at the arching roof -and at the decorations of the chancel. St. Jacques hesitated. - -“If Mademoiselle will excuse me,” he said then, for the first time in -their acquaintance speaking in his native tongue. And, without waiting -for Nancy to reply, he went swiftly forward, bowed for a moment at the -altar rail, then turned and knelt before the first of the painted -Stations of the Cross. - -It was done with the simple unconsciousness of a child to whom his -religion was a matter of every-day experience. Nevertheless, as Nancy -stepped noiselessly into a pew and rested her cheek on her clasped -fingers, she knew by instinct that her companion was in no normal mood. -It was not for nothing that Nancy had watched the sturdy little -Frenchman during the past month. Watching him now, she could see the -pallor underneath his swarthiness, see the sudden weakening of his -resolute chin, and the pitiful curve of the thin lips. Then, all at -once, St. Jacques covered his face with his slim, dark hands, and Nancy -could see nothing more. Involuntarily she wondered whether she might not -already have seen too much. - -St. Jacques was smiling, when he joined her at the door; but they both -were rather silent, as they went down the interminable flight of steps -which leads to Champlain Street, and came out on the broad beach of sand -that borders the Cove when the tide is low. Even during their brief -delay in the church, the short afternoon had waned perceptibly, and the -sun had dropped beneath the crest of the point. Behind their backs, the -bluff rose in a wall of deep purple rock, at their right it was splashed -with an occasional dot of color where some sheltered maple still held -its crown of ruddy leaves. The river beside them flowed on noiselessly, -swiftly, relentlessly as time itself, in a level sheet of steely gray. -But, beyond the gray, relentless flowing, there rose the stately cliffs -of Lévis, solid, permanent and bathed in a glow of mingled purple and -gold. - -As they rounded the Cove with its rotting, moss-grown piers, and reached -the point whence Champlain Street runs in a straight-cut line at the -base of the cliff, St. Jacques came out of his silence, and began to -talk once more. At first, Nancy stared at him in amazement. In all their -acquaintance, she had seen him in no such mood of rattling gayety. The -words flew from his tongue, now English, now French, framing themselves -into every conceivable sort of quip and whim and jest. He laughed at -Nancy for her lusty Americanism, predicted her conversion to Canadian -life and ways, made sport of his own experiences when he had come, a -stranger, to Laval and Quebec. He laughed about Barth and eulogized him -by turns, paused to give a word of hearty admiration to Brock, and then -rushed on into a merry account of his boyhood among the little brothers -and sisters in the quiet French home at Rimouski. Then, as they mounted -the little rise beneath Cape Diamond, his merriment fell from him like -the falling of a mask. - -“Miss Howard,” he said suddenly; “do you remember the sword of -Damocles?” - -“Yes,” she assented, at a loss for the key to this new mood. “What of -it?” - -He pointed up to the cliff. - -“That. They were all at supper, resting and happy after the day, playing -with their little children, perhaps, when the rock fell upon them. There -was no warning, and there were tons and tons of the rock. Seventy-eight -were found, and their coffins were placed together in one huge pile -before the altar rails. Nobody knows how many more are buried under this -little hill in the road. It was impossible to move away the stone; they -could only level it as best they could, and build above it a road for -the living to walk on.” - -Nancy shivered. All at once she became aware of the chill that swept in -from the river, of the growing dusk which the scattered electric lights -were powerless to break. Above her, the cliff towered in sinister, -threatening dignity; and the houses below leaned to its face impotently, -as if their weakness appealed to its strength for mercy and support. - -St. Jacques drew a deep breath. - -“It is no easy thing to live on steadily under an overhanging fate,” he -said, half to himself. - -But Nancy heard and wondered. - -Then, from the heart of the dusk far up the river, there came a distant -throbbing. It grew nearer, more distinct, until they could make out the -dim outline of a mighty ocean-going steamer. In steady majesty it swept -down upon them, glowing with lights from stem to stern, passed them by -and, only a few hundred feet beyond them, paused to drift idly on the -current, as it sent out its shrill call for a pilot. - -The sudden whistle roused St. Jacques from his absorption. He shook -himself free from his mood, and faced Nancy again with a laughing face. - -“Come,” he said. “Supper is calling, and we must hurry.” - -Merrily they picked their way along the darkening tunnel of Little -Champlain Street, merrily they slid upward in the dismal wooden recesses -of the elevator, merrily they tramped along Sainte Anne Street and -halted at the door of The Maple Leaf. - -On the threshold, Nancy faced St. Jacques with merry eyes. - -“Thank you so much for my glorious walk,” she said eagerly. “Confess -that it has been a most jovial occasion.” - -But all the merriment had fled from the dark eyes of St. Jacques. - -“Perhaps,” he assented gravely. “But a true Frenchman often smiles most -gayly when he has been hardest hit.” And, cap in hand, he stood aside to -let Nancy pass in before him. - - - CHAPTER NINETEEN - -International complications had arisen at the supper table. Confronted -by an English menu, the four elderly Frenchmen had held a hasty -consultation over a new item which had appeared thereon. Their minds -were strictly logical; they had come to the conclusion that sweetbreads -were a species of cake, and they had ordered accordingly. - -“_Mais oui_,” one of them observed, as he gravely prodded the resultant -tidbit with his knife and fork. “Vat ees eet?” - -“Them’s the sweetbreads,” responded the waitress, who was an Hibernian -and scanty of grammar. - -There followed an anxious pause, while four prodding forks worked in -unison. - -“_Huitres?_” suggested one Frenchman. - -“_Côtelettes?_” added the second. - -“_C’est bon_,” said the third, more daring than his companions. - -But the fourth pushed aside his plate. - -“_C’est dommage!_” he exclaimed, and Nancy, who shared his opinion, took -refuge in her napkin. - -She emerged to find Brock just taking his place beside her, and she -looked up with a welcoming smile. After the too obvious devotion of the -Englishman, after the self-repressed, high-strung temperament of St. -Jacques, Nancy was always conscious of a certain sense of relief in the -society of the jovial Canadian. It is no slight gift to be always merry, -always thoughtful of the comfort of one’s companions, always at peace -with one’s self and with the world. This gift Brock possessed in its -entirety. Without him at her elbow, Nancy would have passed many a -lonely hour in Quebec. An own brother could not have been more -undemonstratively careful to heed her slightest wish. Best of all, Brock -had a trick of placing himself at her service, not at all as if he were -in love with her; but merely as if it were the one thing possible for -him to do. - -Just once, their friendship had lacked little of coming to grief. On the -evening after the market episode, Nancy had gathered together her -courage and had read Brock a long lecture upon his sins. An hour later, -she had retired from the contest, worsted. With imperturbable good -nature, Brock had assented to her charges against him. Then, swiftly -turning the tables, he had summed up all of Barth’s vulnerable points -and had accused her of increasing their number by an injudicious system -of coddling. Nancy’s hair was red, her temper by no means imperturbable. -She had defended herself with vigor and clearness. Then, with snapping -eyes, she had stalked away out of the room, leaving Brock, serene and -smiling, in undisturbed possession of the field. The next morning, Brock -had been called out of town on business. When he returned, two days -later, Nancy had met him with whole-hearted smiles. Without Brock’s -genial presence, the atmosphere of The Maple Leaf became altogether too -fully charged with electricity for her liking. From that time onward, -Nancy remembered her hair, and fought shy of argument with the tall -Canadian whose very imperturbability only rendered him the more -maddening foe. - -“You look as if you had heard some good news,” she assured him, even -while he was unfolding his napkin. - -Brock smiled with conscious satisfaction. - -“So I have.” - -“Tell me.” - -“Not now.” - -“How long must I wait?” - -“A week.” - -“How unkind of you, when you know I am consumed with curiosity!” - -With the butterknife in his hand, Brock turned. Nancy, as she looked far -into the depths of those clear gray eyes of his, was suddenly aware that -all was right with Brock’s world. Moreover, she was aware that he was as -eager as she herself for the week to pass away and give him the chance -to speak. - -“Then I really must wait,” she assented to the look in his eyes. “A week -is a long time. Meanwhile, I have some news.” - -“Good, I hope.” - -“Certainly. We are expecting a guest, next Friday.” - -“How unlucky for him!” Brock observed. - -“Are you superstitious?” - -“No; but you are.” - -She raised her brows in question, and Brock answered the unspoken words. - -“Otherwise, why do you carry a pocket edition of Sainte -Anne-de-Beaupré?” - -“How do you know I do?” - -“Because it fell out on the floor just now, when I upset your coat. It -is a very superior little Sainte Anne, made of silver.” - -This time, Nancy had the grace to blush. Only the day before, she had -come into possession of the dainty toy. - -“That’s not superstition,” she answered; “it is merely an effigy of my -patron saint.” - -Brock nodded. - -“For the name? I suspect I could tell who chose it.” - -Again Nancy’s brows rose inquiringly. - -“If you like,” she said composedly. - -“Barth, of course.” - -“No. I knew you would say so. Now you have forfeited your one guess,” -she responded smilingly, yet with an odd little tugging at her heart, as -she recalled the face of St. Jacques, as he had laid the little silver -image into her outstretched palm. - -“Make her your patron saint as well,” he had said briefly. “The time may -come when I shall need the prayers of her name-child to help me at her -shrine.” - -And Nancy, looking straight into his dark eyes, had given the promise -that he asked. - -But now, with full intention, she was seeking to drive St. Jacques from -her mind. - -“You don’t ask about our guest,” she added. - -“No.” Brock buttered his bread with calm deliberation. “I knew you would -tell me, when you were ready.” - -She fell into the trap laid by his apparent indifference. - -“I am ready now. It is an old friend of ours from New York, Mr. Joseph -Churchill.” - -“So glad he is an old friend,” Brock responded coolly. - -“Why?” - -“Because he won’t complicate things, as a young man would do.” - -“Mr. Churchill is twenty-five,” Nancy remarked a little severely. - -“We call that rather young up here. Will he stop long?” - -“A day or two.” - -Brock helped himself to marmalade. - -“And he comes, next Friday?” - -“Yes.” - -“Right, oh! See that he gets out of the way by Monday. The Maple Leaf is -quite full enough, as it is.” - -“But he is going to the Chateau,” Nancy explained. - -“Lucky fellow to have money enough! In his place, I should probably have -to seek the Lower Town. What are you going to do with him?” - -Nancy smiled ingratiatingly. - -“Just what I was meaning to ask you, Mr. Brock.” - -Brock’s answering laugh sent Barth’s fingers in search of the string of -his eyeglasses. - -“There’s a snug little cell empty up at the Citadel,” he suggested. -“Take him up there and let him see how he likes military hospitality. He -could put in a very instructive two days, studying the position of the -Bunker Hill cannon.” - -Two days later, Nancy stood in the extreme bow of the Lévis ferry. -Beside her, blond and big and altogether bonny, stood Mr. Joseph -Churchill, obviously an American, equally obviously from New York. At -the stern, in the lee of the deck house, Dr. Howard was doing his best -to shelter himself from the cutting wind. - -Nancy and the New Yorker were in full tide of conversation. No hint of -regret had marked Nancy’s manner, as she had stood scanning the doors of -the sleeping-cars. Before Lévis was a river-breadth behind, she had -gathered from her companion a detailed account of the early gayeties of -the season, had filled his ears with the more sober charms of quaint -Quebec, and had drawn a vivid outline of the more salient -characteristics of Mr. Reginald Brock. Of Barth and St. Jacques, she had -omitted to make any mention. - -Upon one point, the doctor was rigid. Churchill might register at the -Chateau, if he insisted. He must take his meals with them at The Maple -Leaf. And so it came about that Barth’s first intimation that a guest -was expected, occurred when he looked up from his tea, that night, to -greet Nancy as she came into the room, and discovered the huge, sleek -American at Nancy’s side. - -“Oh, by George!” remarked Mr. Cecil Barth, and promptly dropped his -bread, butter-side down, into the starched recesses of his immaculate -white waistcoat. - -Later, he sought the parlor. Over his shoulder, he had heard the gay -voices of Brock and Nancy, and the deeper chest tones of the burly -American. He felt an acute longing to put on his glasses and, screwing -himself about in his chair, to take a prolonged stare at the intruder. -His hurried glance had given him the impression of vast stature combined -with the workmanship of an unexceptionable tailor. But where did the -fellow come from? What was the fellow doing there? And what, oh, by -George, what was the fellow’s connection with Nancy? - -“I’d like to punch him,” Mr. Cecil Barth muttered vengefully to himself. -“Oh, rather!” - -He found the parlor quite deserted. St. Jacques, who had met Churchill -earlier in the afternoon, had betaken himself to his room. Brock and the -Howards, with their guest, were still at the table. Accordingly, Barth -pulled a book from his pocket and sat himself down to wait. He waited -long. When at last Nancy led the way into the parlor, Barth was -surprised to miss Brock from her train. Under such conditions, it was -inconceivable to him that the Canadian should not have stood his ground. -The parlor was common property. He himself would sit there forever, -rather than let himself be ousted by any American, least of all an -American who would bedeck himself with jewelry as uncouth as the -hymnbook of blue and gold that dangled from this American’s fob. Barth -had always heard that Americans were stiffed-necked dissenters. -Nevertheless, he had never supposed they would find it needful to -advertise their dissent by means of enamelled trinkets. He wrapped -himself in his Britishism, and sat tight in his chair, waiting to see -what would occur. - -Nothing occurred. Nancy gave him her usual friendly smile and nod. Then, -crossing the room, she settled herself on a sofa and, making room for -Churchill at her side, dropped into animated talk of places and persons -who were totally remote from Barth’s previous knowledge. Now and then, -she glanced across at him carelessly. Now and then, her huge companion -turned and bestowed upon him a rebuking stare which said, plainly as -words could have done, that his further presence there was needless. - -Regardless of the fact that he knew Nancy was fully aware he never read -through his glasses, Barth remained stolidly on guard, glasses on nose -and nose apparently in his book. Now and then, however, he lowered his -book and refreshed himself with a smile at Nancy, or a scowl at the -unconscious back of Nancy’s companion. - -At length, Nancy could endure the situation no longer. Much as she liked -Barth, she could willingly have dispensed with his society, just then. -After their weeks of separation, she and Churchill had much to talk -over, and she found the presence of an outsider a check upon the freedom -of their dialogue. So sure had she been of Barth’s prompt and tactful -withdrawal that she had made no effort to introduce him, when they had -first entered the room. Her plans for the next day were formed to -include the young Englishman. For that one evening, she had intended to -give her attention entirely to her guest. Now, however, she saw that an -introduction was fast becoming a matter of social necessity, and she -tried to prepare the way for it. - -During the space of a minute, she permitted the talk with Churchill to -lapse. Then, meeting Barth’s eyes above the deckled edges of his book, -she smiled across at him in the friendly, informal fashion he had -learned to know and to like so well. - -“I thought you were bound for the theatre, this evening, Mr. Barth,” she -said. - -It was a wholly random bullet; but it met its billet. Barth reddened. In -his interest in Nancy’s companion, he had entirely forgotten his -explicit announcement of his evening’s plan. - -“Oh, no,” he answered nonchalantly. - -“Then men do occasionally change their minds. Isn’t it a good play?” - -“Oh, yes,” he answered again, still more nonchalantly. - -Turning slightly, Churchill looked across at the slender, boyish figure -at the farther side of the room. His glance was disrespectful, and Barth -was keenly conscious of the disrespect. He made a manful effort to -assert himself. - -“Jolly sort of night, Miss Howard,” was the only bubble that effervesced -from his mind. - -Nancy felt a wave of petulant sympathy sweeping over her. Long -experience of her guest had taught her the meaning of that swift motion -of his head and shoulders, and she feared what might follow, both for -Barth’s sake and her own. She dreaded any possible injury to the -feelings of the young Englishman; she dreaded still more the hearing -Churchill’s irreverent comments upon a man whom she had grown proud to -number among her loyal friends. Never had Barth appeared more -impenetrably dull, never more obdurately British! It was the mockery of -fate. Just when she was praying that he might be at his best, he turned -monosyllabic, and then completed his disgrace by talking about the -weather. Meanwhile her annoyance was forcing all ideas from her own -brain, and her answering question was equally banal. - -“Is it cold, to-night?” - -Barth was not impenetrable, by any means. He felt Nancy’s embarrassment, -was keenly alive to her efforts in his behalf. The knowledge only -rendered him more tongue-tied than ever; but his blue eyes smiled -eagerly back at her, as he responded, with admirable brevity,— - -“Oh, rather!” - -“Joe, what is it?” Nancy demanded, as she followed her strangling guest -out into the hall. - -Churchill was walking to and fro, coughing and teary. - -“Nancy Howard,” he said, as soon as he could speak; “will you kindly -tell me what manner of thing that is?” - -Then Nancy asserted herself. Erect and gracious in her dainty evening -gown, she turned back and stood on the threshold. - -“Mr. Barth,” she said, in a quiet tone of command; “will you please come -here and be introduced to my cousin? Mr. Churchill, I want you to meet -my friend,” an almost imperceptible pause added emphasis to the word; -“my friend, Mr. Cecil Barth.” - - - CHAPTER TWENTY - -“And this,” the guide continued, with the loquacity of his kind; -“directly at our feet is the River Saint Lawrence. That building there -with the pointed roofs is the Chateau Frontenac, built on the exact site -of the old Chateau de Saint Louis. Beyond it, you see the spire of the -French Basilica, consecrated in sixteen hundred and sixty-six, and, -slightly to the right, are the roofs and spires of Laval.” - -“And, right under our noses, the city of Quebec, huddled -indiscriminately around The Maple Leaf,” Brock interrupted, as their -red-coated escort stopped for breath. “Miss Howard, I wish you hadn’t -been quite so generous in your fee.” - -“But I am sure it is very interesting,” Churchill observed politely. -“Remember that I am a stranger here.” - -The guide took the hint and edged towards Churchill’s end of the line. - -“This is what is termed the King’s Bastion,” he went on glibly. “Beyond -is Cape Diamond, so called from the crystals of quartz that used to be -found there. Now they are very rare; but,” with every appearance of -anxiety, he fell to searching his pockets; “but I happen to have—” - -Again Brock interrupted. - -“No use, Thomas Atkins,” he said jovially. “We are too old birds to be -caught in that trap.” - -Unabashed, the guide let the bits of quartz drop back into his pocket. - -“Many ladies admire my buttons,” he said tentatively. “They make -interesting hat pins.” - -“The ladies, or the buttons?” Nancy queried innocently. “But, thank you, -I think you have showed us everything, and we can find our way out -alone.” And, leaving the bastion, she led the way back to the tiny -cannon of Bunker Hill, where she loyally halted her companions. - -A cloudless sky arched above the old gray Citadel, that morning. Inside -the walls, the daily routine was going its usual leisurely course. Few -visitors were abroad; but an occasional private strayed across the -enclosure and, not far from the gate, guard-mounting was just taking -place. Nancy watched the new guard as it tramped out into the open, -saluted and went into position, its every evolution followed in detail -by the stout Newfoundland dog who waddled along at its heels. Then, as -the band swung about and marched off for its daily practice, she moved -away. - -“Come,” she said a little impatiently. “After the glorious past, the -present is a bit of anticlimax. Shall we go for a walk?” - -Her companions assented, and together they went down into Saint Louis -Street and turned towards the terrace. As they passed Barth’s quarters, -he unexpectedly appeared upon the steps. - -“Whither?” Nancy called blithely, as he lifted his cap. - -“To post some letters.” - -“Come with us, instead,” she bade him, notwithstanding the murmured -protestations which arose from both Brock and Churchill. - -To Nancy’s mind, the previous evening had not been altogether a shining -success. For half an hour after their introduction, she had dragged the -two men through a species of conversation; but there had been a triple -sigh of relief as the evening gun had marked the hour for Barth’s -departure. Nancy had followed him to the parlor door. - -“Good night,” she said cordially there. “We shall see you, in the -morning?” - -“Oh,—yes. If I can,” Barth answered vaguely. - -Then he had made a dejected exit. As he strolled languidly away to his -room, he alternated between fears of a possible relapse in his ankle, -and mutinous thoughts regarding the hero of Valley Forge. - -“Beastly race, those American men!” was the finale of his reflections. -“Oh, rather!” - -Now, however, his dejection vanished in the face of the sunshiny morning -and of Nancy’s greeting. - -“Won’t I be in the way?” he asked. - -“Why should you?” - -“I can’t walk much, you know.” - -“But I thought Englishmen were famous for their walking,” Churchill -said, as he greeted the young Englishman much as a genial mastiff might -salute a youthful pug. - -Barth glanced towards Nancy with a confident smile. - -“Didn’t Miss Howard tell you?” he asked. - -“Tell me what?” - -“About the way we first met. I sprained my ankle, and Miss Howard turned -into a hired nurse, and took care of me.” - -Churchill’s eyes sought Nancy’s scarlet face. - -“The deuce she did! Where was this party?” - -“This—?” - -“This party?” - -“Oh, no. It wasn’t a party at all. I was entirely by myself. I have -sometimes wondered how she ever chanced to find me in all that crowd.” - -“Probably the Good Sainte Anne guided her unworthy namesake,” Nancy -responded lightly. “That was where the tragedy occurred.” - -“Oh!” Beside Barth’s _oh_, that of Churchill seemed needlessly crisp and -curt. “But I thought you were bored to death at Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré, -Nancy.” - -“That was only at first. Later, events happened.” - -“So I should judge. Strange you forgot to mention them!” - -“There are unexplained gaps in your own letters,” she reminded him -audaciously. “It was only by chance that I heard whom you took out, the -night of the Leighton dinner.” Then she turned to the others. “We -mustn’t go far, this morning,” she added; “not so much on account of -your foot, Mr. Barth, as because of our early dinner. Shall we take -ourselves to the terrace?” - -High up on the glacis in the lee of the King’s Bastion, they found a -belated bit of Indian summer. Nancy dropped down on the crisp, dry turf -and, turning, beckoned St. Jacques to her side. Crossing the terrace -with Barth, she had seen the Frenchman pacing to and fro beside the -rail, and she had answered his wishful greeting with a smile of welcome. -Leaving Brock and Churchill to lead the way, Nancy had sauntered idly -along in the rear, adjusting her quick step to the frailties of Barth’s -ankle, her alert happiness to the darker mood which sat heavily upon her -other companion. - -“You are not going to fail us, this afternoon, M. St. Jacques?” she -asked now. - -Silently he shook his head. - -“Your cousin has a perfect day,” he said, after a pause. - -“And he appreciates it. Already, he declares himself the slave of the -place.” - -“You are coming with me, in the morning?” St. Jacques inquired. - -“I am not sure. I hope we can; but Mr. Churchill is not a very good -Catholic,” she answered, with a smile. - -St. Jacques’s eyes lighted mirthfully. - -“But Sainte Anne is his patron saint?” he questioned. - -Nancy shook her head. - -“Alas, no! He has shifted his allegiance, and poor Sainte Anne is -feeling very much cut up about it.” - -“No matter,” St. Jacques answered philosophically. “She is getting her -fair share of devotees, and, with France and England at her shrine, she -can afford to be content without America.” Then his face darkened. “If -only she will be propitious!” he added, with sudden gravity. - -Nancy’s hand shut on a tuft of grass at her side. Slowly she had come, -during those past days, to the realization of the dual personality of -the patron saint of Adolphe St. Jacques. Half human, half divine, the -Good Sainte Anne was holding complete sway in the mind of the young -Frenchman, just then. Half his unspoken wish was plain to her, half was -still beyond her ken. She wondered restlessly when would come the time -that she was free to speak. She wondered, too, what were the words she -was destined to say. - -With a swift motion, St. Jacques settled backward to rest his elbow on -the grass at her side. Pushing back his cap, as if its slight weight -irritated him, he swept the dark hair from his forehead. Nancy frowned -involuntarily as her eyes rested on the angry scar. - -“That was a shocking blow,” she said pityingly. - -He nodded, with slow thoughtfulness. Then he bit his lip, and shook his -hair forward until the scar was completely hidden. - -“It might have been worse—perhaps.” - -“You’d better ask the Good Sainte Anne to do a miracle on you,” Brock -suggested, from his place farther up the slope. - -Instantly the dark eyes sought Nancy’s face. - -“I have already asked her,” Adolphe St. Jacques answered quietly. - -“And what did the lady say?” - -The Frenchman’s eyes moved northward and rested upon the purple tops of -the far-off Laurentides. - -“My novena is not finished. She has yet to make her answer,” he said. - -And, for the second time in their acquaintance, Nancy was conscious of -the dull tugging at her heart. Forgetful of Barth, watching from the -other side, she turned to look straight down into the face of St. -Jacques; and Brock, who alone of them all had been taken into the heart -of the Frenchman’s secret, felt it no shame to himself when the tears -rushed into his clear gray eyes, as he saw the look on Nancy’s face, -womanly, earnest, yet all unconscious of impending ill. - -It was Churchill who broke the silence. A stranger to them all but -Nancy, he yet could not fail to realize the tension of the moment. -Nevertheless he assured himself that he had met those symptoms before. -Nancy’s path, the past season, had been strewn with similar victims. - -“Wonderful view!” he said calmly. - -The platitude broke the strain. St. Jacques sat up and put on his cap, -and Barth fumbled for his glasses. Above them, Brock openly rubbed his -eyes with the bunched-up fingers of his gloves. - -“So glad you like it, Joe! It is wonderful; and then it is endeared to -me by all manner of associations. Away up there in those blue hills, Mr. -Barth sprained his ankle; M. St. Jacques and I spent an afternoon in -this road just underneath the cliff, and,” her eyes sought Brock’s eyes -mockingly; “and there aren’t ten blocks in the entire city that can’t -mark some sort of a skirmish between the American and Canadian forces.” - -Brock’s answering shot was prompt. - -“It is only that America refuses to be annexed,” he supplemented -gravely. “We hope to bring her to terms in time.” - -And Barth fell to kicking the turf in moody discontent. Nancy checked -him. - -“Don’t destroy the glacis of your chief American outpost, Mr. Barth. You -may need it sometime to fight off the French from your possessions.” - -Her words had been wholly free from any allegorical meaning. -Nevertheless, Barth’s heels ground into the turf more viciously than -ever, as he made grim answer,— - -“Oh, we English need no artificial defenses to fight off the Frenchmen, -you know.” - -“Sic ’em!” Brock observed impartially. Then he snatched his hat from his -head, and, forgetful of their differences, Barth and St. Jacques -followed his lead. - -Distant and faint from behind the sheltering wall came the strains of -_God Save the King_, as the band marched back from practice. - -“Strange to hear _America_ up here!” Churchill said idly. - -“_America?_” The Frenchman’s accent was inquiring. - -“Yes. That is our national anthem.” - -“How long since?” Brock queried coolly. - -“Why, always, I suppose.” - -Barth bestowed a contemplative stare upon the stranger. - -“How very—American!” he observed. - -“Of course. We think it is rather characteristic, and are no end proud -of it,” Churchill assured him blandly. - -Barth sat up, straight and stiff. - -“Mr. Churchill, did you ever happen to hear of _God Save the King_?” - -“Queen? Oh, beg pardon! She’s dead, and it is a king now. Yes, I’ve -heard of it. What about it?” - -“That.” Barth swept his little gray cap towards the dying notes of the -final phrase. “Your so-called _America_ is only our _God Save the -King_.” - -“Is it? I’m no musician, and didn’t know. Still, I can’t see that it -hurts it, to have started with you. So did we all, if it comes to that.” - -“Then you should give us the credit for having originated it,” Brock -suggested. - -St. Jacques rolled over on his other elbow. - -“As it happens, Brock, you didn’t originate it. It came from the other -side of the Channel.” - -“Oh, rather! But it’s ours,” Barth interposed hastily. - -St. Jacques rolled back again. - -“I beg your pardon, Mr. Barth; but it chances to be French,” he returned -quietly. “Lulli wrote it for Louis Quatorze, and England borrowed it -without returning thanks.” And then, still leaning on his elbow with his -eyes fixed upon Barth, he sang to the end the good old song,— - - “Grand Dieu! Sauvez le Roi! - Grand Dieu! Sauvez le Roi! - Sauvez le Roi! - Que toujours glorieux, - Louis Victorieux, - Voye ses ennemis - Toujours soumis.” - -As the light baritone voice died on the still air, Nancy looked down at -him with a smile. - -“France scores, this time,” she said. “But what a text for an -international alliance! Here we are, three nations sitting under the -eaves of the most famous citadel in America, and each claiming as his -very own the same national anthem.” - -“Oh; but it is generally admitted to belong to us,” Barth added, with -unflinching persistence. - -The next night, Churchill and the doctor were left alone for a few -moments. The doctor held out his hand with a smile. - -“Nancy tells me you are open to congratulation, Joe.” - -“Yes. That is what brought me up here. I am too fond of you both to be -willing to take your congratulations in ink. She is a wonderful girl, -Uncle Ross.” The happiness of the young American sat well upon him. In -his uncle’s eyes, he gained dignity, even as he spoke those few words. -Then he laughed. “You may find yourself in the face of a similar -situation,” he suggested. - -“What do you mean?” - -“Nancy.” - -The doctor stared at him for a moment. - -“Oh, not a bit! Not a bit!” he said then. “Every lover is looking for -love. Nancy is nothing but a little girl.” - -Churchill smiled. - -“Then look out for your little girl. You may lose her, some day.” - -“No,” the doctor protested valiantly. “The Lady will see to that. They -are nice boys, good boys; but they are only children.” - -“Don’t be too sure. If I know anything at all about such matters—” - -“You don’t,” the doctor interrupted testily. “But go on! Go on!” - -“Then St. Jacques is very much in love with Nancy; and, what is more, -that snip of an Englishman is in love with her, too.” - -“Hh! And what about Brock?” growled the doctor. - -Churchill thrust his hands into his pockets and smiled back into the -frowning face of his uncle. - -“That’s where you have me,” he answered coolly. “I have been watching -the two of them, all day long, and I’ll be sanctified if I can tell you -now.” - - - CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - -Four days after Churchill took his departure from Quebec and its Maple -Leaf, Brock came striding into the dining-room, his head erect, his gray -eyes shining. - -“Miss Howard, you are going for a walk, this afternoon,” he said, as he -drew back his chair. - -“How do you know?” - -“Because I am counting on you. Have you anything else to do?” - -“I was going to the library,” she suggested. “The new magazines are just -in.” - -“Let them wait,” he said coolly. “It is too fine a day to be wasted over -a fire and a book. I’ll not only show you a new picture; but I promise -to tell you a better story than any that ever was written into a -magazine.” - -Nancy looked up into his happy eyes. - -“Then the week is over?” she questioned. - -“At last.” - -She laughed at his accent of relief. - -“How impatient you were! Your secret must have preyed upon you.” - -“Not so bad as that,” he began; but she interrupted him mockingly. - -“And how many people have you been telling, in the meantime?” - -“Not one.” - -“Truthfully?” - -“Yes. I wanted to tell you, first of all.” - -She smiled back at him fearlessly. - -“Thank you. I appreciate it.” - -“And will you go?” - -“Of course,” she answered heartily. “Did a woman ever refuse to listen -to a secret?” - -An hour later, she joined him in the hall. Brock stared at her -approvingly. Her dark green cloth gown was the work of a tailor of -sorts; the plumes of her wide hat made an admirable setting for her halo -of ruddy hair. And Nancy returned the approval in full measure. Few men -were better to look upon than was Reginald Brock, tall and supple, his -well-set head thatched with crisp brown hair and lighted with those -merry, clear gray eyes. No sinister thought had ever left its line on -Brock’s honest, manly face. - -“Come, then,” he said, as he opened the door. “You are in my hands, this -afternoon.” - -He led the way to the Lower Town. Then, leaving Notre Dame des Victoires -far behind them, they passed the custom house, crossed to the Louise -Embankment and, rounding the angle by the immigration sheds, came out on -the end of the Commissioners’ Wharf. - -“There!” Brock said triumphantly. “What do you think of this?” - -Nancy drew a long breath of sheer delight. - -“One can’t think; one can only feel,” she said slowly. - -The river, lying deep blue in the yellow sunlight, slid past their very -feet, its glittering wavelets crossed and recrossed with silvery -reflections caught from the sky above. Far down its course, the dark -indigo Laurentides seemed jutting out into the stream that washed their -feet. Above was the Citadel, a crown of gray upon its purplish cliff. -Behind them, the noise of the city lost itself in the murmur of the -hurrying tide. Close at hand, a network of cables was lowering freight -into the hold of an ocean-going steamer; and, out in the middle of the -stream, a clumsy craft, loaded to the water’s edge, crawled sluggishly -upward against current and tide, ready for the morrow’s market. - -Brock pointed to an unused anchor, close to the edge of the embankment. - -“Shall we sit down?” he asked. - -Nancy took her place in silence. Silently he dropped down beside her. It -was a long time before the stillness was broken, save by the lapping of -the river at their feet and the hoarse cries of the men in the steamer’s -hold. For the moment, they were as isolated as if they had been in some -remote desert, rather than upon the edge of one of the busiest spots of -the entire city. - -Brock’s impatience appeared to have left him. With his gaze on the -river, he was whistling almost inaudibly to himself; but it was plain to -Nancy, as she watched him, that his thoughts were altogether pleasant -ones. So were her own, for the matter of that. The past month had been a -happy one to her, and Brock had caused some of its happiest memories. -She had trusted him completely, and she had never known him to fail her. -His chivalry, his courtesy, his brother-like care had been for her, from -the hour of their meeting. She could still recall the glad look in his -eyes, as they had rested upon her when he entered the dining-room, that -first night. From that hour onward, Nancy Howard and Reginald Brock had -been sure, each of the other’s friendship. - -“What about it?” Brock asked, as he suddenly turned to face her. - -“About what?” - -“The subject of your thoughts.” - -“All good things,” she answered unhesitatingly. “I was thinking about -you, just then.” - -“And wishing me good?” - -“All good, even as you have been good to me,” she responded, with quiet -dignity. - -He smiled. - -“Nothing to count. But now for the picture.” - -“It is beautiful beyond words.” - -He smiled again. - -“Wait. You haven’t seen it yet.” - -With a quick motion of his hand, he drew his watch from his pocket, -opened the case and held it out to Nancy. There was no cloud of -reservation in the girl’s happy eyes, as she looked at the picture -within. - -“Mr. Brock!” - -“Yes?” - -His accent was full of happy question. Downright and prompt came Nancy’s -answer. - -“She is adorable.” - -Gently he took the watch from her hand and looked steadily at the -picture, a picture of a round girlish face set as proudly as Brock’s own -upon its shapely shoulders. - -“Yes,” he assented slowly. “Better than that, she is good.” - -There was no mistaking the gladness in Nancy’s tone, as she responded,— - -“I think I was never more delighted in all my life. You were good to -tell me, first of all.” - -“I wanted to,” Brock replied, with boyish eagerness. “We’ve been such -good chums, all this last month, that I was sure you would be -interested. I want you to meet her. We weren’t going to announce it just -yet; but I coaxed her to hurry it up a little, so I could bring her to -call on you, before you go home.” - -Nancy still held the picture in her hand. - -“Is she really as pretty as this?” she asked. - -“Why,—yes, I suppose so. I used to think so. Lately, I haven’t thought -much about her looks, one way or the other,” he confessed. “She always -seems to me about right, and she knows things, too. Really, Miss -Howard,” as he spoke, he faced Nancy, with his eyes shining; “really, -I’m in great luck. It isn’t every day that a girl of her sort falls in -love with a fellow like me.” - -There was no hint of coquetry in Nancy’s manner. With a frankness his -own sister might have shown, she held out her hand in token of -congratulation. - -“I am not so sure of that,” she answered, with a smile. - -Then the pause lengthened. Brock’s thoughts were far afield; Nancy’s -were fixed upon the man at her side. In all sincerity, she did rejoice -at his unexpected tidings. No sentimental regrets entered into her -perfect content. Her friendship for Brock had been friendship pure and -simple; on neither side had it ever been mingled with a thought of love. -From chance playmates of an October holiday, they had grown into a loyal -liking which was to outlast many a dividing year and mile. And Brock -deserved all good things, even the love of this dainty bit of girlhood -whose eyes smiled bravely back into her own. - -“Tell me all about it,” she said at last. - -Brock roused himself from his reverie. - -“There’s not so much to tell. I’ve known her always; we’ve always been -good friends, but, last summer at Cacouna, it was—different.” - -Nancy smiled at the pause which added explanatory force to the last -word. - -“And was it then?” - -“No; not till two or three weeks ago. You see, it took me a good while -to get to where I dared speak about it.” - -“And when—?” - -Brock looked up suddenly. - -“I don’t dare think of that yet, Miss Howard,” he answered a bit -unsteadily. “The present is so perfect that I am afraid to tempt Fate by -asking anything more of the future. For the present, I am like the river -out there,” he pointed to the shining stream before him; “just drifting -along in the sunshine.” - -And the sunshine found an answering light in Nancy’s eyes, as, accepting -his offered hand, she slowly rose to her feet and turned her face -towards home. - - - CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - -The clouds hung gray and low over the old gray city. From the river the -wind swept in, raw and cutting, and the Laurentides lay in the purple -haze which betokens a coming storm. The terrace was deserted; the -fountain in the Ring had stopped playing, and narrow Sainte Anne Street -was turned into a tunnel thick with flying dust. Indian summer was at an -end, and winter was at hand. - -With her ruddy hair flying and her broad hat tilted rakishly over one -ear, Nancy came fighting her way down Saint Louis Street and across the -Place d’Armes. Her pulses were pounding gayly with the intoxication of -the cold; her face glowed with the struggle of meeting the boisterous -wind. From his ducal casement, Barth eyed her wishfully. Then he -returned to his book. Nancy, in such a mood as that, defied his powers -of comprehension. Upon one former occasion he had seen her thus, a -veritable spirit of the storm. Experience had taught him certain -lessons. Mr. Cecil Barth looked down on Nancy’s erect head and blazing -cheeks, on her vigorous, elastic tread. Looking, he sighed, and -prudently remained hidden in his room. - -Ten minutes later, Nancy’s shut hand descended upon her father’s door. -The door was locked. - -“Oh, daddy, are you there?” she called ingratiatingly. - -There was no reply, and she tapped again. This time, the doctor -answered. - -“Busy, Nancy.” - -“Really and truly?” she wheedled. - -“Yes.” - -“Oh, how mean of you! How long?” - -“I can’t tell.” - -Her lips to the keyhole, she heaved an ostentatious sigh. The sigh -brought forth no sign of relenting. - -“I am very lonesome, daddy,” she said then. “It is too bad of you to -neglect me like this. But, if you really won’t let me in, I’m going out -on the ramparts for a breath of fresh air.” - -“Well,” the doctor’s accent bespoke his manifest relief. “Go on, dear; -but don’t get blown away.” - -“No; and don’t you fall asleep over your horrid old manuscripts, and -forget to let yourself out and come down to supper,” she cautioned him. -“Good by.” - -Going back to her room, she took off her jacket and broad hat, and -replaced them with a sealskin coat and toque. Then she went running down -the stairs and turned out into Sainte Anne Street, already powdered -thickly with falling flakes. - -With the coming of the snow, the wind was dying, and Nancy made her way -easily enough around the corner into Buade Street, past the Chien d’Or, -gnawing his perennial bone high in the air, and out to the northeast -corner of the city wall where she halted, breathless, beside one of the -venerable guns. - -Just then, the door of the doctor’s room opened, and Adolphe St. Jacques -stepped out into the hall. - -“Courage, boy!” said the doctor kindly. - -And St. Jacques nodded in silence, as he gripped the outstretched hand. - -As a matter of course, he took his way straight in the direction of the -ramparts. St. Jacques could think of but one person in the world, just -then; and that person was Nancy Howard. He overtook her at the angle of -the ancient wall. Later, it occurred to him that there was a symbolic -meaning in the situation, as he came hurrying onward, with Laval at his -left, Nancy at his right, and the brief, empty stretch of road before -him. At the time, however, he had but one thought, and that was to get -to Nancy. - -He found her standing with her back towards the direction from whence he -came. One arm lay lightly across the cannon, the other rested on the old -gray parapet which made a fitting background for her slight figure in -its dark cloth skirt and dark fur coat. Her shoulders were sprinkled -with the fine, soft snow and, against the snowy air above the river, her -vivid hair, loosened by the wind, stood out in a gleaming aureole above -the high collar of her coat. - -“Miss Howard!” - -She turned with a start to find St. Jacques at her side. Releasing the -cannon, she held out her hand in blithe greeting. - -“Isn’t this superb?” she exclaimed breathlessly. “I am so glad you have -come to enjoy it with me. See how the river is all blown into a chopping -sea! And the snow over Lévis! And look at those thick clouds of snow -that keep scurrying across the river! How can people stay in-doors and -lose it all?” - -For an instant, St. Jacques felt himself dazzled by her beauty and by -her strong vitality. In all his past experience, there had been no other -Nancy. He sought to get a firm grasp upon himself. The instant’s delay -caught Nancy’s quick attention, and she shrank from him, as she saw his -rigid face and lambent eyes. Then she rallied and laughed lightly. - -“What is it, M. St. Jacques?” she queried. “You look as if you had seen -a ghost.” - -“So I have.” - -“Was it a pretty one?” she asked nervously, as she locked her hands -above the crowned monogram on the gun, and stood looking at him a little -defiantly. - -He shook his head. - -“It was the ghost of what I might have been,” he answered quietly. - -Again Nancy sought to dominate the scene. - -“So bad as that?” she asked, with a futile attempt at flippancy. - -He disregarded her words. - -“Miss Howard,” he said slowly; “I have come to say good by.” - -Instantly her tone changed. - -“Oh, I am so sorry! Is it for a long time?” - -“I may not come back while you are here.” - -It was plain that he was struggling hard to hold himself steady; and -Nancy, at a loss to explain the situation, nevertheless found herself -sharing his mood. - -“I am sorry,” she repeated slowly. “Are you going to leave Quebec?” - -“I am going home.” - -“There is no trouble there, I hope.” - -“No. The trouble is all here.” - -Nancy’s mind went swiftly southward to the frisky, boyish days that -unfold themselves at Yale. - -“At Laval?” she questioned, with a smile. - -St. Jacques shook his head. - -“What should be the trouble at Laval?” he asked. - -“Oh, nothing; unless you have come into collision with a dean or two,” -she answered hastily. - -St. Jacques smiled, with a pitiful attempt at mirth. - -“No. On the other hand, something came into collision with me.” - -“What was that?” - -For his only answer, he brushed aside his hair and let the storm sweep -pitilessly against the scar beneath. Nancy caught her breath sharply. - -“M. St. Jacques! Do you mean that it is going to be serious?” - -“So serious that I must give up all work.” - -“Who says so?” she demanded. - -“Your father.” - -“My father?” Nancy’s accent dropped to utter hopelessness. “For how -long?” - -“Until I am better.” - -“And when will that be?” - -“He says it is impossible for him to tell. Perhaps—” - -“Perhaps?” Nancy echoed questioningly. - -“Perhaps—never.” - -There was no answer for a moment. Then Nancy’s glove tore itself across -with the strain of her clenched fingers. - -“Oh, I could kill the man who struck that blow!” she burst out. Then her -head went down on the crowned monogram, and the silence dropped again. - -At length, Nancy raised her head. - -“Shall we walk on?” she asked, as steadily as she could. “It is very -cold here, all at once.” - -Side by side, they turned the corner to the westward, and came into -comparative shelter. - -“How long have you known it?” she said, as soon as she could speak -quietly. - -“Just as you came to the door of your father’s room.” - -She drew a slow breath, as she looked up at his face, white, but -resolute still. - -“And already it seems ages old. You are sure?” - -“He is. It has been coming on for a month now. Three weeks ago, I went -to your father and told him that I feared there was trouble. He bade me -wait, to live out of doors and to work as little as possible. I kept the -hope. My profession means so much to me now, that I could not give it -up.” - -“Yes, I know. Your profession is your very life,” Nancy answered gently. - -Swiftly he turned and faced her. In that one glance, Nancy saw all the -fiery, repressed nature of the man, read his secret and, with a sinking -heart, acknowledged to herself the fatal keenness of the blow which she -must one day in honor deal. - -But the answer of St. Jacques was already in her ears. - -“It means far more than life.” - -She tried to stem the tide of his words. - -“When do you go?” she asked hurriedly. - -“To-morrow.” - -“So soon as that?” - -“There must be an operation.” - -“Where?” - -“At my home. Your father will go with me. Every one says no greater man -can be found. He is very good,” St. Jacques added simply. - -Again Nancy’s courage failed her. Again she looked into her companion’s -face, and took heart from the resolution written there. - -“I wish I knew what to say,” she said quietly. - -“Sometimes there is nothing to say. It is all said for us,” he replied, -with sudden dreariness. “Meanwhile, may I ask a favor of you?” - -“Of course.” - -“You have your little Sainte Anne?” - -For her only answer, she took it from the folds of her blouse and laid -it in his hand. He walked on for a moment, looking down at it with -loving, reverent eyes. Then he gave it back into her keeping. - -“I had hoped so much from it,” he said slowly; “so much more than you -ever knew. I regarded the name as an omen of good. I even made my -novena; but it was all in vain.” His voice dropped. “All in vain.” Then -he steadied himself. “But the favor? It is to be next Thursday, three -days from now. The operation, I mean. On that day, will you go out to -the shrine of the Good Sainte Anne, and say a prayer for me? You are no -Catholic, I know; but it will help me to be brave, if I can feel that -together you and she are making intercession in my behalf.” - -Resolutely Nancy brushed the tears from her cheeks and faced him with a -smile. - -“I—promise,” she said. Then her voice failed her again. - -“Thank you. It will be a help. Beyond that, I ask nothing of you. In the -one case, it could do no good. In the other, I shall come back to you. -There is no need to tell you all I have wished—and hoped—and prayed -for, all you have been in my life, these past weeks. If the Good Sainte -Anne wills it, I shall tell it all to you, some day. If not—good by.” - -As he took her hand into his strong fingers, Nancy’s tear-dim eyes were -blind to everything but the unspoken love and longing in the great dark -eyes before her, everything but the point of the lower lip rolling -outward in its pitiful attempt to form its own brave, characteristic -little smile. - -Then, hat in hand and the snow sifting down on his thick dark hair, he -turned away and left her alone beside the old gray wall in the -fast-gathering snow. - - - CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - -Five days later, the doctor came back from Rimouski. Nancy, on the -platform of the station, waited eagerly until he came in sight. Then she -stepped back and hid her face. - -“It was all so like his life,” her father said, when they sat together -in his room, that night; “brave and quiet and full of thought for us -all. Once he rallied for a few hours, and we felt there was hope. At the -very last, he gave me this for you. He said you would understand.” And -the doctor laid in Nancy’s palm a tiny figure of the Good Sainte Anne, -the exact duplicate of her own, save that its silver base bore the arms -of St. Jacques and, beneath, two plain initials: _N_ and _H_. - -A week later, Nancy rose from her knees beside her father’s open trunk, -and stood staring down into the courtyard. Wrapped to his ears, the old -habitant still sat on his block in the corner, peeling potatoes without -end. Far above his head, a stray shaft of sunshine gilded the gray wall -and reminded Nancy of her resolution to take a final walk, that morning. - -It was almost with a feeling of relief that Nancy saw the approaching -end of her stay at The Maple Leaf. The past days had held some of the -saddest hours she had ever known. Till then, she had never realized how -the bright, brave personality of the sturdy little Frenchman had -pervaded the place, how acutely she could mourn for a man of whom, less -than six weeks before, she had never even heard. Forget him she could -not. She and Brock talked of him by the hour, now laughing over the -merry days they had spent together, then giving up to the sudden wave of -loneliness which swept over them at the thought of the _nevermore_ that -separated them from their good comrade. As yet, it was too soon for them -to take comfort from the doctor’s words, that the swift passing of -Adolphe St. Jacques had been but the merciful forestalling of a pitiful, -lingering death in life. - -To one day, Nancy never made any allusion. That was the day she had -spent alone, at the shrine of the Good Sainte Anne. - -Now, as she stood before her mirror, fastening on her hat, her glance -fell to the little figure of the good saint and, taking it up, she -looked long at the symbols graven on its base. She hesitated. Then she -gently slid it into the breast pocket of her coat. In loyalty to St. -Jacques, it still should be her companion. His eyes now, in the clearer -light, could see what had before been hidden from them. Adolphe St. -Jacques was too unselfishly loyal to fail to understand the nature of -the only love she could ever have given him and, understanding, to -reject it. - -Inside the city wall, the early snow had vanished; but it still lay -white over the Cove Fields, over the ruins of the old French -fortifications, and over the plains beyond. Beyond Saint Sauveur, the -hills were blue in the sunshine, and the light wind that swept in from -their snowy caps, was crisp and full of ozone. Nancy had left The Maple -Leaf with slow step and drooping head; she went tramping along the Grand -Allée as if the world were all before her, to be had for the mere sake -of asking. Then, as she turned again and halted by the Wolfe monument, -her buoyant mood forsook her. That simple shaft marked the end of one -who died, victorious. It spoke no word of those others, Frenchmen, -brave, true-hearted fellows who fell there in their hour of defeat. And -not one of them was braver, more true-hearted than little Adolphe St. -Jacques. - -“Oh, Miss Howard.” - -Impatiently she raised her head from the cold iron palings. Barth was -standing close at her side. Even as she nodded to him, she felt a sudden -shrinking from his inevitable question as to the cause for her tears. To -her surprise, no question came. - -“After all, he was a wonderfully good little fellow,” Barth said simply. - -She nodded, without speaking. Barth let full five minutes pass, before -he spoke again. - -“I saw you go by the house,” he said then. “I fancied you would come out -here. I knew you liked the place.” - -“Yes.” - -“And so I followed you. I wanted to see you, if I could. Miss Howard, I -shall miss you.” - -“I am glad of that. It would be dreary to feel that no one mourned for -our departure.” - -“Oh, yes,” Barth agreed. “Shall we go on for a little walk?” - -With one last look at the shaft and its deathless words, Nancy turned -and followed him back to the Grand Allée, back from the place of the -dead to the haunts of the living. - -“Do you go, to-morrow?” Barth asked, after another pause. - -“To-morrow noon.” - -“It is going to be very lonely,” he said. - -“I am glad,” she repeated. - -Even to Barth’s conservative mind, the conversation did not appear to be -making much progress. He turned and peered into Nancy’s thoughtful face. - -“Oh, Miss Howard, would you be willing to give me your address?” he -asked abruptly. - -“Of course, if you wish it,” she assented cordially. - -“Rather! I might call on you, you know, if I ever went to The States.” - -“That would be delightful. So you think you will come across the -border?” - -“Perhaps. I have often wondered, just lately, you know, what I would -think of The States. What do you think?” - -“That I love them,” Nancy said loyally. - -“Oh, yes. But what do you think that I would think?” - -Nancy laughed outright, as she met his anxious eyes. - -“That it is never safe to predict. I advise you to come and see for -yourself.” - -Barth’s face cleared. - -“Thank you, you know. And the address?” - -“I haven’t any cards here.” - -“Oh, but I have.” And Barth hastily took out his cardcase. Then, with -infinite difficulty, he focussed upon a card the tip of the little gold -pencil that dangled from his watchchain. - -Nancy dictated the address. Then she laughed. - -“The idea of tying your pencil to you!” she commented irreverently. - -“Why not? Then one doesn’t lose it, you know.” - -“Yes, I do know. It reminds me of the way I used to have my mittens -sewed to the ends of a piece of braid,” Nancy responded. - -Barth looked up from his half-written card. - -“Really? How interesting! But, Miss Howard—” He halted abruptly. - -“What now?” - -“About The States. You feel they are the only place to live in?” - -“Certainly,” Nancy replied promptly. - -“Oh. Have you ever been to England?” - -“No.” Nancy began to wonder at the antiquity of British customs. At this -rate of progress, it would take aeons for a Britisher to evolve a custom -of any sort. Already her mind had outstripped the deliberate mental -processes of Barth. She also began to wonder impatiently how long it -would take him to come to the point. There seemed to her something -inhuman in allowing him to remain on the rack of suspense. Nevertheless, -she felt that it would be altogether unseemly for her to refuse anything -before she was asked. - -“Don’t you want to go to England?” Barth continued calmly. - -“Yes, of course. I want to visit it. However, that doesn’t mean that I -wish to take up my abode there.” - -“Oh. I am sorry. Still,” Barth went on meditatively; “I dare say one -could make out very well, even if he had to live in The States.” - -“I certainly expect to,” Nancy responded coolly. - -Again he peered into her face. - -“Oh; but I don’t refer to you,” he said hastily. “I was speaking of -myself.” - -“But I thought you were going out to a ranch.” - -“That was before I met you,” Barth answered, with quiet directness. - -Suddenly a change came over him. Throwing back his shoulders, he faced -Nancy with a resolution which brought new lustre to his eyes, new lines -of character into his boyish face. And Nancy, as she saw the change in -him, trembled for the decision which, with infinite difficulty, she had -long been fixing in her girlish mind. - -“Miss Howard,” he asked abruptly; “do you believe in the Good Sainte -Anne?” - -Without speaking, Nancy let her hand rest lightly on the little silver -image in the pocket of her coat. Then she nodded in silence. - -“So do I,” Barth answered. “I am not a Catholic; still, I believe that -the good lady has had me in her keeping, and I trust she may continue -her care for me. Miss Howard, I am English; you are American, very -American indeed. However, different as we are, I think our lives need -each other. I had never thought,” he hesitated; then, cap in hand, he -stood looking directly into her blushing face; “I had never supposed -that my life could hold a love like what has grown into it. I dare not -face that life without—Miss Howard,” he added, with a swift change to -the simple boyishness which became him so well; “my life is all yours, -to do what you like with. I shall try to meet your decision bravely; but -I do hope you won’t throw me to one side, as of no use.” - -But Nancy walked on without answering; and Barth, still cap in hand, -moved on at her side. - -“It began a long while ago,” he added at length. “I really think it must -have started, that day at the shrine of Sainte Anne.” - -Again Nancy’s hand caressed the little image in her pocket. - -“I think perhaps it did,” she assented. - -For a moment, Barth walked on in silence, unable to construe her words -into the phrase which he was waiting to hear. Then he spoke again. - -“I went out to Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré, one morning last week,” he said -slowly. “It was very desolate there, at this season. I walked out on the -pier. Then I went back and sat in the church for quite a long time, and -I thought about things. Miss Howard, I wish I had never given you that -guinea.” - -With an odd little laugh, which was yet half a sob, Nancy put her hand -into her pocket, felt about underneath the little silver image, and -slowly drew out a shining bit of gold. - -“Here it is, Mr. Barth,” she said. “Take it back, if you wish it.” - -Taking it from her outstretched hand, he stared at it intently for a -moment. Then he held it out to her again. - -“And you have carried it, all this time?” - -“No,” she confessed reluctantly. “Only lately.” - -“Oh, but—” - -“I have called it my lucky penny,” she interrupted, with a smile. “I had -never supposed you would regret giving it to me.” - -Still with the coin in the hollow of his hand, he put on his glasses and -peered into her face. He read there something which he had missed in her -tone. Dropping his glasses again, he held out the shining golden guinea. - -“Please take it back again,” he said, and in his voice there came a -sudden imperious accent which was new to Nancy. “And, when you take it, -take me, too. We both are yours, you know.” - -The girl moved steadily on for a step or two, her eyes fixed upon the -strip of path before her. Then her step lagged a little and, turning, -she smiled up into Barth’s troubled, waiting eyes, while she held out -her hand for the coin. - -“Give it back to me, then,” she said quietly. “It is mine.” - -“With all it must mean,—Nancy?” - -“Yes. With all it does mean.” - -Their hands met about the shining piece of gold, and it was an instant -before they dropped apart again. Then Barth gave a contented little -sigh. - -“And now,” he said slowly; “now at last I really can call you my Good -Sainte Anne. Oh, rather!” - - - - - Transcriber’s Notes - -Obvious printing errors have been silently corrected. - -Inconsistencies in hyphenation, spelling and punctuation have been -preserved. - - - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's By the Good Sainte Anne, by Anna Chapin Ray - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY THE GOOD SAINTE ANNE *** - -***** This file should be named 60175-0.txt or 60175-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/1/7/60175/ - -Produced by David T. 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