laid down, alas!--"

"Monsieur--!" she said choking, and with a troubled little gesture.

"You must let me speak, Rosalie. We got your father this post-office.
It is a poor living, but it keeps a roof over your head. You have never
failed us you have always fulfilled our hopes. But the best years of
your life are going, and your education and your nature have not their
chance. Oh, I've not watched you all these years for nothing. I never
meant to ask you to marry me. It came to me, though, all at once, and I
know that it has been in my mind all these years--far back in my mind. I
don't ask you for my own sake alone. Your father may grow very ill--who
can tell what may happen!"

"I should be postmistress still," she said sadly.

"As a young girl you could not have the responsibility here alone. And
you should not waste your life it is a fine, full spirit; let the lean,
the poor-spirited, go singly. You should be mated. You can't marry
any of the young farmers of Chaudiere. 'Tis impossible. I can give you
enough for any woman's needs--the world may be yours to see and use to
your heart's content. I can give, too"--he drew himself up proudly--"the
unused emotions of a lifetime." This struck him as a very fine and
important thing to say.

"Ah, Monsieur, that is not enough," she responded.

"What more can you want?"

She looked up with a tearful smile. "I will tell you one day, Monsieur."

"What day?"

"I have not picked it out in the calendar."

"Fix the day, and I will wait till then. I will not open my mouth again
till then."

"Michaelmas day, then, Monsieur," she answered mechanically and at
haphazard, but with an urged gaiety, for a great depression was on her.

"Good. Till Michaelmas day, then!" He pulled his long nose, laughing
silently.... "I leave the tailor in your hands. Give every man his
chance, I say. The Abbe is a hard man, but our hearts are soft--eh, eh,
very soft!" He raised his hat and turned to the door.

CHAPTER XXIX. THE WILD RIDE

There had been a fierce thunder-storm in the valley of the Chaudiere.
It had come suddenly from the east, had shrieked over the village,
levelling fences, carrying away small bridges, and ending in a pelting
hail, which whitened the ground with pebbles of ice. It had swept up to
Vadrome Mountain, and had marched furiously through the forest, carrying
down hundreds of trees, drowning the roars of wild animals and the
crying and fluttering of birds. One