not guilty; but her father say I am a
sc'undrel, and turn me out de house.

"De girl, Christine, she love me. Yes, she love Vanne Castine. She say
to me, 'I will go with you. Go anywhere, and I will go!'

"It is night and it is all dark. I wait at de place, an' she come. We
start to walk to Montreal. Ah! dat night, it is like fire in my heart.
Well, a great storm come down, and we have to come back. We come to your
house here, light a fire, and sit just in de spot where I am, one hour,
two hour, three hour. Saprie, how I love her! She is in me like fire,
like de wind and de sea. Well, I am happy like no other man. I sit here
and look at her, and t'ink of to-morrow-for ever. She look at me; oh, de
love of God, she look at me! So I kneel down on de floor here beside her
and say, 'Who shall take you from me, Christine, my leetla Christine?'

"She look at me and say: 'Who shall take you from me, my big Vanne?'

"All at once the door open, and--"

"And a little black notary take her from you," said Shangois, dryly, and
with a touch of malice also. "You, yes, you lawyer dev', you take her
from me! You say to her it is wicked. You tell her how her father will
weep and her mother's heart will break. You tell her how she will be
ashame', and a curse will fall on her. Then she begin to cry, for she is
afraid. Ah, where is de wrong? I love her; I would go to marry her--but
no, what is that to you! She turn on me and say, 'I will go back to my
father.' And she go back. After that I try to see her; but she will not
see me. Then I go away, and I am gone five years; yes."

Shangois came over, and with his thin beautiful hand (for despite the
ill-kept finger nails, it was the one fine feature of his body-long,
shapely, artistic) tapped Castine's knee.

"I did right to save Christine. She hates you now. If she had gone with
you that night, do you suppose she would have been happy as your wife?
No, she is not for Vanne Castine."

Suddenly Shangois's manner changed; he laid his hand upon the other's
shoulder.

"My poor, wicked, good-for-nothing Vanne Castine, Christine Lavilette
was not made for you. You are a poor vaurien, always a poor vaurien. I
knew your father and your two grandfathers. They were all vauriens;
all as handsome as you can think, and all died, not in their beds.
Your grandfather killed a man, your father drank and killed a man. Your
grandfather drove his wife to her grave, your father broke your mother's
hear