one--to a man living in Montreal. She sent these letters, but not more
than once in six months did she get a reply, and she had not had one in
a whole year. Yet every week she asked, and Rosalie found it hard to
answer her politely, and sometimes showed it.

So it was that the two disliked each other without good cause, save that
they were separated by a chasm as wide as a sea. The one disliked the
other because she must recognise her; the other chafed because she could
be recognised by Rosalie officially only.

The late afternoon of the day in which Rosalie decided to nail the cross
on the church door again, Paulette arrived to ask for letters at the
moment that the office wicket was closed, and Rosalie had answered that
it was after office hours, and had almost closed the door in her face.
As she turned away Jo Portugais came out of the tailor-shop opposite. He
saw Paulette, and stood still an instant. She did the same. A strange
look passed across the face of each, then they turned and went in
opposite directions.

Never in her life had time gone so slowly with Rosalie. She watched the
clock. A dozen times she went to the front door and looked out. She
tried to read--it was no use; she tried to spin-her fingers trembled; she
sorted the letters in the office again, and rearranged every letter and
parcel and paper in its little pigeonhole--then did it all over again.
She took out again the letter Paulette had dropped in the letter-box; it
was addressed in the name of the man at Montreal. She looked at it in a
kind of awe, as she had ever done the letters of this woman who was
without the pale. They had a sense of mystery, an air of forbidden
imagination.