plainly wrong and hence forbidden.

They reached home as night was falling. The coming of evening was
only a slow fading of the light, for, since morning, the heavens had
been overcast, the sun obscured. A sadness rested upon the pallid
earth; the firs and cypresses did not wear the aspect of living
trees and the naked birches seemed to doubt of the springtime. Maria
shivered as she left the sleigh, and hardly noticed Chien, barking
and gambolling a welcome, or the children who called to her from the
door-step. The world seemed strangely empty, for this evening at
least. Love was snatched away, and they forbade remembrance. She
went swiftly into the house without looking about her, conscious of
a new dread and hatred for the bleak land, the forest's eternal
shade, the snow and the cold,--for all those things she had lived her
life amongst, which now had wounded her.



CHAPTER XII

LOVE BEARING GIFTS

MARCH came, and one day Tit'Be brought the news from Honfleur that
there would be a large gathering in the evening at Ephrem
Surprenant's to which everyone was invited.

But someone must stay to look after the house, and as Madame
Chapdelaine had set her heart on this little diversion after being
cooped up for all these months, it was Tit'Be himself who was left
at home. Honfleur, the nearest village to their house, was eight