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His lips moved restlessly; he frowned; his hands nervously clasped the arms of the chair. "Madelinette too shall see that I am to be reckoned with, that I am not a nobody. By God, then, but she shall see it!" he added, bringing his clasped hand down hard upon the wood.
The door closed, and Madelinette was left alone with the Cure. She came to him and said with a quivering in her voice: "He mocked Louis." "It is well that he should go. He is a bad man and a bad servant. I know him too well." "You see, he keeps saying" she spoke very slowly "that he witnessed a will the Seigneur made in favour of Monsieur Fournel. He thinks us interlopers, I suppose."
He drank slowly, holding his head far back, and as he brought it straight again, he swung on his heel, for two tears were racing down his cheeks. The mealman wiped his eyes in sympathy; the charcoalman shook his head at the blacksmith, as though to say, "Poor devil!" and Parpon straightway filled their glasses again. Madelinette took the flask to the old sergeant.
A moment afterwards Lapierre was on the box, Madame Marie was inside, and Madelinette said to the coachman: "Drive hard the White Calvary by the church of St. Mary Magdalene." In another hour the coach drew up by the White Calvary, where a soft light burned in memory of some departed soul. The three alighted.
I suppose he could not help remembering that I lived at the smithy once the dear smithy," she added softly. "I will go at once and pay the scoundrel his wages," said the Seigneur, rising, and with a nod to the Cure and his wife opened the door. "Do not see him yourself, Louis," said Madelinette. "Not I. Havel shall pay him and he shall take himself off to-morrow morning."
I had the will she stole from him," he added, pointing to Fournel. Distressed as Madelinette was, she was composed and ready. "The man was dismissed my employ " she began, but Fournel interposed. "What is this I hear about shooting and a will?" he said sternly. "What will!" cried Tardif. "The will I brought you from Pontiac, and Madame there followed, and her servant shot me.
Yet he was met by her cheerful smile, by her quiet sense of humour, by the touching yet not demonstrative devotion of the wife to the husband, and a varying and impulsive adoration of the wife by the husband. One day when the Cure was with the Seigneur, Madelinette entered upon them. Her face was pale though composed, yet her eyes had a look of abstraction or detachment.
"I drink to Madelinette, daughter of that fine old puffing forgeron Lajeunesse," he added, as the big blacksmith now entered the room. Lajeunesse grinned and ducked his head. "I knew Madelinette, as did you all, when I could take her on my knee and tell her English stories, and listen to her sing French chansons the best in the world. She has gone on; we stay where we were.
You have set them right, and you will keep him within the bounds of wisdom and prudence. You are his guardian angel, Madelinette." She looked up at him with a pensive smile and a glance of gratitude. "But suppose that will if there is one exists, see how false our position!"
Madelinette was standing, tense and set with terror, her eyes riveted on something that crouched beside a pile of cart-wheels a few feet away; something with shaggy head, flaring eyes, and a devilish face. The thing raised itself and sprang towards hers with a devouring cry. With desperate swiftness leaping forward, Valmond caught the half man, half beast it seemed that by the throat.
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