o hard," she said between her teeth.

"Threats! Pah!" he rejoined. "What do you think I'm made of?"

"I'll find that out," she said, and, turning on her heel, ran down the
road towards the Manor House. "What had Rosalie to do with the cross?"
Jo said to himself. "This is her hood." He took it out and looked at it.
"It's her hood--but what did she want with the cross?"

He hurried on, and as he neared the post-office he saw the figure of a
woman in the road. At first he thought it might be Rosalie, but as he
came nearer he saw it was not. The woman was muttering and crying. She
wandered to and fro bewilderedly. He came up, caught her by the arm, and
looked into her face.

It was old Margot Patry.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE WOMAN WHO DID NOT TELL. "Oh, M'sieu', I am afraid."

"Afraid of what, Margot?"

"Of the last moment, M'sieu' le Cure."

"There will be no last moment to your mind--you will not know it when it
comes, Margot."

The woman trembled. "I am not sorry to die. But I am afraid; it is so
lonely, M'sieu' le Cure."

"God is with us, Margot."

"When we are born we do not know. It is on the shoulders of others. When
we die we know, and we have to answer."

"Is the answering so hard, Margot?"

The woman shook her head feebly and sadly, but did not speak.

"You have been a good mother, Margot." She made no sign.

"You have been a good neighbour; you have done unto others as you would
be done by."

She scarcely seemed to hear.

"You have been a good servant--doing your duty in season and out of
season; honest and just and faithful."

The woman's fingers twitched on the coverlet, and she moved her head
restlessly.

The Curb almost smiled, for it seemed as if Margot were finding herself
wanting. Yet none in Chaudiere but knew that she had lived a blameless
life--faithful, friendly, a loving and devoted mother, whose health had
been broken by sleepless attendance at sick-beds by night, while doing
her daily work at the house of the late Louis Trudel.

"I will answer for the way you have done your duty, Margot," said the
Cure. "You have been a good daughter of the Church."

He paused a minute, and in the pause some one rose from a chair by
the window and looked out on the sunset sky. It was Charley. The woman
heard, and turned her eyes towards him. "Do you wish him to go?" asked
the Cure.

"No, no--oh no, M'sieu'!" she said eagerly. She had asked all day that
either Rosalie or M'sieu' should be