A STRANGE MEETING.
Three months afterwards, Frank was planting his tomatoes in his
greenhouses. He had two span-roofs, each one hundred and forty feet
long by forty feet wide.
He had sold the workshop which was situated a few yards to the north
of the house, and had thus been enabled to build larger houses than
he at first intended.
He heard vague rumours about his step-mother going to marry again.
If the truth must be said, Frank felt delighted at the prospect of
getting rid of her. He had never cared for her much, and, recently,
the gap that had always existed between them had been considerably
enlarged.
He had been out on business and had arrived rather late in the
evening, at which Mrs. Mathers was terribly displeased. "I am not
going to sit up all night waiting for you," she said, and then she
added in a most sarcastic tone of voice: "Perhaps you have been at
the cemetery."
Frank was moved to the quick. He was of a rather passionate temper
and he felt nothing but contempt for the person who had made this
remark. "I have not been," he said hotly, "I have been about my
business."
"I thought that perhaps you had been crying there," she continued
with the same irritating smile on her features.
Frank answered: "I might have done worse."
"Who would think that of a man of twenty-one," she said. "Of course,
you do not care for your poor father; your mother gets all the
tears."
Frank quite forgot himself. He looked at her defiantly and said in a
low tone half fearing and yet wishing to be heard: "You are a
Jezabel," then turned round and left the room.
When he came to think over the last words which he had used towards
his step-mother, he felt ashamed of himself. He felt he had not
behaved as a man, much less as a Christian. He had gone much too
far; he owed her respect.
He thought of going straight to her, and of asking her pardon, but
his pride prevented him from taking this wise step. Only for a
minute, however; he soon overcame it and resolutely re-entered the
room where Mrs. Mathers was.
"I was very rude to you," he began, "I was rather excited, and----"
Without saying a word Mrs. Mathers left the room and, slamming the
door after her, proceeded upstairs.
Frank felt relieved. He had attempted a reconciliation. She had
refused. He felt a sense of duty done.
We may add that Mrs. Mathers pouted for more than a week.
The second anniversary of his father's death having arrived, Frank,
profiting by his step-mother's absence, took a small bunch of sweet
scented flowers and proceeded towards the Foulon Cemetery, where his
parents were buried.
As he was about to open the gate, he thought he saw the form of a
lady which he knew, coming down the road after him. He arrested his
steps. The young lady stopped likewise, as if to examine the
cottage situated on her left, and, in doing so, she turned her back
towards Frank.
He did not stay there long, but proceeded up the gravel walk towards
the grave, but as he advanced, he thought no more of his mission.
"Where have I seen that face?" he thought, "it seems familiar to
me."
He was now beside the grave, he placed the flowers near the
tombstone, but his thoughts were not with the dead, they were with
the living.
All at once, it flashed upon him, he remembered that person. That
form, that face, belonged to Adele Rougeant.
He hastily left the graveyard and almost ran down the walk.
One of the two persons who were standing near the gate said: "That
man has seen a ghost."
Frank smiled as he overheard the remark, and, thinking that the
young lady had proceeded past the gate, he went in that direction.
He walked for a quarter of an hour, but neither saw her nor anyone
resembling her. At last, he gave up the chase in despair. "I must
have construed wrongly," he said to himself, "perhaps the person who
was standing near the entrance to the cemetery was right, it was her
ghost." He mournfully retraced his steps.
It was really Adele Rougeant that he had seen. She was returning
from town, when, instead of going straight home by St. Martin's
mill, she went up the Grange, took a peep at her former home, then
proceeded by the Rocquettes down the Rohais. Why; the lady readers
will easily guess.
She espied Frank, just as he was turning down Foulon Vale.
He was so intent on his mission that he did not notice her.
As soon as she saw his eager look and the bunch of flowers which he
carried in his hands, a feeling of exasperating jealousy seized her.
Where was he going with those flowers? "Alas!" she thought bitterly,
"he has a rendezvous with some pretty lass. I will follow him and
ascertain, if possible, the truth."
She walked after him, and when he turned round to look at her, she
hastily looked the other way. Fearing lest he might recognise her,
she retraced her steps and continued her journey homewards down the
Rohais, muttering: "A fine place for a rendezvous."
Something within her tried to reason: "He is nothing to you, you
have no claims upon him." But what of her future, what of her
projected plans, her ideas, her sweet dreams; they were mown down in
this huge and single sweep. Life seemed very dark. Up to this, hope
had kept her radiant and cheerful, and now, hope was gone, and in
its stead, there was a blank.
Arrived home, she fetched her violin and poured forth all her
feelings.
She commenced in a plaintive tone, then this changed to reproach,
and the conclusion was a wail of despair.
Again she tried to rouse herself; again she tried to reason. "Why am
I so concerned about him?" she asked herself. "I must put these
foolish thoughts aside."
But love denied what reason would dictate, and she found herself
continually sighing.
Meanwhile, Tom continued his visits from time to time, and she
received him with as much coldness as she dared.
But when she came to think that Frank was an acquaintance to be
forgotten, she slightly changed her manner towards her cousin.
Her father was not slow to notice the change. He laughed inly and
chuckled: "I knew she would come to love him; but I must not hurry
her, she is by nature a slow coach; everything will yet come all
right in the end."
The days were lengthening and Tom continued to come as early as he
used to do in the depth of winter.
It was now quite daylight when he put in an appearance. One evening
he took Adele for a walk round the garden. Poor girl; she did not
love him, but she did not like to speak roughly to him. She felt
that she was wronging him. She knew that at each meeting his hope
increased. Still, what was she to do? She began to persuade herself
that he was not so bad as she had imagined. He was now a reformed
man; her father had told her so, and she could see it. If the
passion for drink which was still probably strong within him should
return! She paused, mused and said with a sigh: "Alas! I do not feel
that I love him."
Still; she hardly knew if in the end she would accept him. He would
be so deeply grieved if she refused, and then, if she accepted him,
her father would perhaps become once more what he was when she was
quite a child. She remembered how he used to take her on his knee,
and call her his dear little girl.
She went on thinking: "How many people marry without what is
generally called love? Certainly, the greater portion. The French
have what they call _marriages de raison_, and they seem to agree
as well as others."
Poor Adele. How many have reasoned thus, how many are daily giving
themselves away in marriage to men for whom they feel nought but
friendship; how many give their hand to one, while their heart
yearns for another.