en to be honest and she keeps them clean. She has never
stolen from her own village--it is a point of honour with her. Ah! you
do not know Marianne as I know her."

"It seems to me you are growing enthusiastic over our worst vagabond," I
laughed.

"I am," replied the cure frankly. "I believe in her; she is afraid of
nothing. You see her as a vagabond--an outcast, and the next instant,
_Parbleu!_ she forces out of you your camaraderie--even your respect.
You shake her by the hand, that straight old hag with her clear blue
eyes, her square jaw and her hard face! She who walks with the stride of
a man, who is as supple and strong as a sailor, and who looks you
squarely in the eye and studies you calmly, at times disdainfully--even
when drunk."

* * * * *

It was late when Monsieur le Cure left me alone by my fire. I cannot say
"alone," for the Essence of Selfishness, was purring on my chest.

In this old _normand_ house of mine by the marsh, there comes a silence
at this hour which is exhilarating. Out of these winter midnights come
strange sounds, whirring flights of sea-fowl whistle over my roof, in
late for a lodging on the marsh. A heavy peasant's cart goes by,
groaning in agony under the brake. When the wind is from the sea, it is
like a bevy of witches shrilling my doom down the chimney. "Aye, aye,
'tis he," they seem to scream, "the stranger--the s-t-r-a-n-g-e-r."
One's mind is alert at this hour--one must be brave in a foreign land.

And so I sat up late, smoking a black pipe that gurgled in unison with
the purring on my chest while I thought seriously of Marianne.

I had seen her go laughing to jail two months ago, handcuffed to a
gendarme on the back seat of the last car of the toy train. It was an
occasion when every one in the lost village came charitably out to have
a look. I remembered, too, she sat there as garrulous as if she were
starting on a holiday--a few of her old cronies crowded about her. One
by one, her children gave their mother a parting hug--there were no
tears--and the gendarme sat beside her with a stolid dignity befitting
his duty to the _Republique_. Then the whistle tooted twice--a coughing
puff of steam in the crisp sunlight, a wheeze of wheels, and the toy
train rumbled slowly out of the village with its prisoner. Marianne
nodded and laughed back at the waving group.

"_Bon voyage!_" croaked a little old woman, lifting her claw. She had
borrowed fiv