ou would be foolish to change your way of life! It
is not worth your while to leave St. Ignace, but I know who ought to
go, to be sent to the right about pretty quickly too, and that is--this
man, Edmund Crabbe. What do you think of helping me to get him away?
He's a public nuisance in spite of his education, and we should all do
better without him."

Ringfield was always torn by painful, shameful jealousy when he thought
of the Englishman, and his entire nature appeared to change. He could
not have called him "Hawtree" or "Mr." for his life; that savoured of
gentility and the fervid past when the man was perhaps a picturesque
figure, quoting the English classics in the guise of an unfortunate
exile. Besides, if he fathomed Poussette's feelings correctly, the
latter in his own jealousy of Crabbe might be found a powerful ally.
The plain truth was--three men wanted the same woman; and vaguely, it
seemed to Ringfield as if he--the worthiest--had chief right to her; he
feared not Poussette, the married and the marred, the uneducated, the
inferior one of her own race, but he still feared the perversely
cultured, doubtlessly gifted, decadent "Oxford man," the social
superior of every one in the village.

Poussette again reflected. Any latent jealousy he had entertained of
the minister tended to disappear under the fire of these inquisitorial
interviews, and Ringfield might always be credited with having fine
command over his features.

"Ah, well, m'sieu," said the Frenchman, sagaciously nodding, "Crabbe is
no harm. You get me my divorce; let me marry Ma'amselle Pauline, live
with her at the beeg house, and I'll promise--_parole d'honneur_,
m'sieu--to see no more that man."

"The Manor House! It will be a long time before any one can live
there, I should think!" said Ringfield impatiently, concealing the
spasm of tortured pride that passed over him as he heard Poussette's
tactics defined. "And what if she will not marry you? Mlle.
Clairville is wedded to the theatre, she tells me, and although of that
I cannot approve, it would not be so bad as marrying a divorced person."

"But we are great friends, sir! Many a tam I have kept that house,
many, many months, m'sieu, supply well with food--the meat and the
dhrink, the chickenne and the wine. Her brother is _fou_--mad, he has
not one cent monee. How then shall mademoiselle fare? I am good
tenant of her brother, the Sieur, Seigneur of St. Ignace, and I send my