a temper--many times, but he never went. It is foolish to dismiss a man
in a temper. He thinks you do not mean it. But our Madelinette there"--
he turned towards the Cure now--"she is never in a temper, and every one
always knows she means what she says; and she says it as even as a
clock." Then the egoist in him added: "I have power and imagination
and the faculty for great things; but Madelinette has serene judgment
--a tribute to you, Cure, who taught her in the old days."

"In any case, Tardif is going," she repeated quietly. "What did he do?"
said the Seigneur. "What was your grievance, beautiful Madame?"

He was looking at her with unfeigned admiration--with just such a look
as was in his face the first day they met in the Avocat's house on his
arrival in Pontiac. She turned and saw it, and remembered. The scene
flashed before her mind. The thought of herself then, with the flush of
a sunrise love suddenly rising in her heart, roused a torrent of feeling
now, and it required every bit of strength she had to prevent her
bursting into a passion of tears. In imagination she saw him there,
a straight, slim, handsome figure, with the very vanity of proud health
upon him, and ambition and passionate purpose in every line of his
figure, every glance of his eyes. Now--there he was, bent, frail, and
thin, with restless eyes and deep discontent in voice and manner; the
curved shoulder and the head grown suddenly old; the only thing, speaking
of the past, the graceful hand, filled with the illusory courage of a
declining vitality. But for the nervous force in him, the latent
vitality which renewed with stubborn persistence the failing forces, he
was dead. The brain kept commanding the body back to life and manhood
daily.

"What did Tardif do?" the Seigneur again questioned, holding out a hand