and a
singular mellow haze fills all the forest paths. Now can be closely
seen the different forms of the trees, each trunk and each limb no less
interesting than the brilliant foliage which lately enveloped them; the
abandoned nests are bare, some on the ground transfixed between the
bushes, or pendant from the branches of tall trees. The evergreens of
various kinds supply the note of colour which alone gives hope and
promises relief from neutral brown and grey, and underneath what once
was a leafy forest arcade are all the roots of spring--the spotted
erythronium, the hepatica, the delicate uvularia, the starry
trientalis. Through such spacious aisles and along such paths of
promise Henry Clairville walked every day while the fine weather
lasted, wearing the ancient suit and the black skull-cap, and often
attended as far as Lac Calvaire by the white peacock and two cats, and
always watched from window or door by the faithful Mme. Poussette.
Fear of contagion kept the Archambaults away, all save Antoine, who,
constituting himself a bodyguard for Pauline in the village, took
messages to and fro the Manor House.

When M. Clairville had seen the stores and provisions in his cellar,
sufficient, with a few additions, for the entire winter months at
least, he demanded of madame if she would remain with him and manage
his house, and the poor woman assented with delight. Poussette did not
want her; she had no place in the world, no ties; only occasionally was
she required to nurse sick people in the village; here was a
comfortable remote haven where she might be of use, busied in
exercising those faculties remaining to her, which at Poussette's were
rotting and rusting away. She remained therefore, to cook and wait
upon him; a new existence sprang up for both, and it was when this sort
of thing had lasted for a month that the parish priest, Father Rielle,
thought it his duty to call.

CHAPTER XIV

FATHER RIELLE

"--his moods
Of pain were keen as those of better men,
Nay, keener, as his fortitude was less."

The writer has elsewhere stated that the Roman Catholic clergy in this
part of the world are easily divided into two classes, the rotund, rosy
and jolly, and the thin, ascetic and reserved; the _cure_ of St. Ignace
belonged to the latter, and possessed a strongly marked characteristic
face, the droop of his bitter mouth and the curve of his chiselled nose
being almost Dantesque in effect.