had other views.

So he was going. Madelinette had urged him to stay, but he had replied
that it was too late. The harm was not to be undone.

As Muroc spoke, every one turned towards Medallion. He came over and
filled a glass at the table, and raised it.

"I drink to Madelinette, daughter of that fine old puffing forgeron
Lajeunesse," he added, as the big blacksmith now entered the room.
Lajeunesse grinned and ducked his head. "I knew Madelinette, as did you
all, when I could take her on my knee and tell her English stories, and
listen to her sing French chansons--the best in the world. She has gone
on; we stay where we were. But she proves her love to us, by taking her
husband from Pontiac and coming back to us. May she never find a spot so
good to come to and so hard to leave as Pontiac!"

He drank, and they all did the same. Draining his glass, Medallion let
it fall on the stone floor. It broke into a score of pieces.

He came and shook hands with Lajeunesse. "Give her my love," he said.
"Tell her the highest bidder on earth could not buy one of the kisses
she gave me when she was five and I was twenty."

Then he shook hands with them all and went into the next room.

"Why did he drop his glass?" asked Gingras the shoemaker.

"That's the way of the aristocrats when it's the damnedest toast that
ever was," said Duclosse the mealman. "Eh, Lajeunesse, that's so, isn't