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!”