n to one he was not thinking of Madamoiselle Adrienne Bourcier.
His mind, however, must have been absorbingly occupied; for in the
straight, open way he met Father Beret and did not see him until he
came near bumping against the old man, who stepped aside with
astonishing agility and said--

"Dieu vous benisse, mon fils; but what is your great hurry--where can
you be going in such happy haste?" Rene did not stop to parley with the
priest. He flung some phrase of pleasant greeting back over his
shoulder as he trudged on, his heart beginning a tattoo against his
ribs when the Roussillon place came in sight, and he took hold of his
mustache to pull it, as some men must do in moments of nervousness and
bashfulness. If sounds ever have color, the humming in his ears was of
a rosy hue; if thoughts ever exhale fragrance, his brain overflowed
with the sweets of violet and heliotrope.

He had in mind what he was going to say when Alice and he should be
alone together. It was a pretty speech, he thought; indeed a very
thrilling little speech, by the way it stirred his own nerve-centers as
he conned it over.

Madame Roussillon met him at the door in not a very good humor.

"Is Mademoiselle Alice here?" he ventured to demand.

"Alice? no, she's not here; she's never here just when I want her most.
V'la le picbois et la grive--see the woodpecker and the robin--eating
the cherries, eating every one of them, and that girl running off
somewhere instead of staying here and picking them," she railed in
answer to the young man's polite inquiry. "I haven't seen her these
four hours, neither her nor that rascally hunchback, Jean. They're up
to some mischief, I'll be bound!"

Madame Roussillon puffed audibly between phrases; but she suddenly
became very mild when relieved of her tirade.

"Mais entrez," she added in a pleasant tone, "come in and tell me the
news."

Rene's disappointment rushed into his face, but he managed to laugh it
aside.

"Father Beret has just been telling me," said Madame Roussillon, "that
our friend Long-Hair made some trouble last night. How about it?"

Rene told her what he knew and added that Long-Hair would probably
never be seen again.

"He was shot, no doubt of it," he went on, "and is now being nibbled by
fish and turtles. We tracked him by his blood to where he jumped into
the Wabash. He never came out."

Strangely enough it happened that, at the very time of this chat
between Madame Roussillon