lt
would come! He chuckled to think how he had provided himself with
a refuge against his hour of trouble. That very day he had left his
employment, meaning to return no more, securing his full wages through
having suddenly become resentful and troublesome, neglectful--and
imperative. To avoid further unpleasantness the firm had paid him all
his wages; and he had straightway come to Vilray to earn his bed
and board by other means than through a pen, a ledger and a gift for
figures. It would not be a permanent security against the future, but
it would suffice for the moment. It was a rest-place on the road. If
the worst came to the worst, there was his grand-daughter and his dear
son-in-law whom he so seldom saw--blood was thicker than water, and he
would see to it that it was not thinned by neglect.

Meanwhile he ogled Palass Poucette's widow with one eye, and talked
softly with his tongue to Mere Langlois, as he importuned Madame to "Sip
the good cordial in the name of charity to all and malice towards none."

"You're a bad man--you, and I want none of your cordials," was Mere
Langlois's response. "Malice towards none, indeed! If you and the devil
started business in the same street, you'd make him close up shop in a
year. I've got your measure, for sure; I have you certain as an arm and
a pair of stirrups."

"I go about doing good--only good," returned the old sinner with a leer
at the young widow, whose fingers he managed to press unseen, as he
swung the little bottle of cordial before the eyes of Mere Langlois.
He was not wholly surprised when Palass Poucette's widow did not show
abrupt displeasure at his bold familiarity.

A wild thought flashed into his mind. Might there not be another refuge
here--here in Palass Poucette's widow! He was sixty-three, it was true,
and she was only thirty-two; but for her to be an old man's darling who
had no doubt been a young man's slave, that would surely have its weight
with her. Also she owned the farm where she lived; and she was pleasant
pasturage--that was the phrase he used in his own mind, even as his eye
swept from Mere Langlois to hers in swift, hungry inquiry.

He seemed in earnest when he spoke--but that was his way; it had done
him service often. "I do good whenever it comes my way to do it," he
continued. "I left my work this morning"--he lied of course--"and hired
a buggy to bring me over here, all at my own cost, to save a fellow-man.
There in the Court House