o her--"make me that, _mon Pere_; make me
that--Jean's beacon all through my life"--and the bitter words that
were on her lips were crowded back, and she turned slowly away.

But now Jean caught her arm.

"No, no, Marie-Louise, I did not mean that!" he cried penitently.
"See, I did not mean that!"

She made no answer. Her head was averted; her eyes fixed far out over
the water.

Jean bit his lips. Certainly he had had no right to give it away, but
it was a small matter to make such a fuss over, and he had already
promised her another. Was it possible that she had sensed anything of
the wild passion that had come upon him for this beautiful American!
Was she already jealous? Well, it was easily knocked out of her head,
that--if one took the bull by the horns! And if he were mad it was no
reason that hurt should come to Marie-Louise because of it. Some day
it would be all over this madness, and was it not Marie-Louise and he
who were to make their little home together? He forced a laugh again,
and caught her shoulders and drew her closer.

"Confess, Marie-Louise," he said teasingly, "that it is because I gave
it to another woman. Is it not so, eh? That you are--oh, _la,
la_!--that little Marie-Louise is jealous of mademoiselle."

Her head lifted, a new light suddenly in her eyes--one of incredulous
amazement.

"Jealous of mademoiselle!" she repeated wonderingly. "Of mademoiselle
who is of the _grand monde_ and so far above us and not of our world at
all--and you who are a fisherman! How could I be jealous? How could
such a thing be possible? Oh, Jean, don't you understand, it is not
that you gave it to her--it is that you gave it at all."

"But what does it matter, then," demanded Jean, inwardly relieved,
"since I will make you as many more as you please? To-morrow you shall
have another much better than this one."

Footsteps sounded from the gravel walk on the cliff above; and
Marie-Louise, glancing around, lifted Jean's hands from her shoulders.

"I have told you, Jean, that you can never make another," she said,
with a little catch in her voice; then hurriedly: "It is mademoiselle
and her father coming to see you. I must go."

"And I have told you," declared Jean, with sudden, fierce assertion,
"that I can make a thousand, and all better than this one!"

She bent her head to hide the blinding tears that were filling her eyes
again. It meant nothing to him, that which had been so great a pl