Then, there was the hood. She had waited on and on, fearing word would
come that it had been found in the churchyard, and that she had been seen
putting the cross back upon the church door. As day after day passed she
had come at length to realise that, whatever had happened to the hood,
she was not suspected. Yet the whole train of circumstances had a
supernatural air, for the Cure and Jo Portugais had not made public their
experience on the eventful night; she had been educated in a land of
legend and superstition, and a deep impression had been made upon her
mind, giving to her other new emotions a touch of pathos, of imagination,
and adding character to her face. The old Seigneur stroked his chin as
he looked at her. He realised that a change had come upon her, that she
had developed in some surprising way.

"What has happened--who has happened, Mademoiselle Rosalie?" he asked.
He had suddenly made up his mind about that look in her face--he thought
it the woman in her which answers to the call of man, not perhaps any
particular man, but man the attractive influence, the complement.

Her eyes dropped, then raised frankly to his. "I don't know,"--adding,
with a quick humour, for he had been very friendly with her, and joked
with her in his dry way all her life; "do you, Monsieur?"

He pulled his nose with a quick gesture habitual to him, and answered
slowly and meaningly: "The government's a good husband and pays regular
wages, Mademoiselle. I'd stick to government."

"I am not asking for a divorce, Monsieur."

He pulled his nose again delightedly--so many people were pathetically
in earnest in Chaudiere--even the Cure's humour was too mediaeval and