tiens, what a close mouth! What did she do? Who knows? What you
think she do, it's this. You think she pretends to love you, and you
leave all your money with her. She is to buy masses for your father's
soul; she is to pay money to the Cure for the good of the Church; she
is to buy a little here, a little there, for the house you and she are
going to live in, the wedding and the dancing over. Very well. Ah,
my Pomfrette, what is the end you think? She run away with Dicey the
Protestant, and take your money with her. Eh, is that so?"

For answer there came a sob, and then a terrible burst of weeping and
anger and passionate denunciations--against Junie Gauloir, against
Pontiac, against the world.

Parpon held his peace.

The days, weeks, and months went by; and the months stretched to three
years.

In all that time Pomfrette came and went through Pontiac, shunned and
unrepentant. His silent, gloomy endurance was almost an affront to
Pontiac; and if the wiser ones, the Cure, the Avocat, the Little
Chemist, and Medallion, were more sorry than offended, they stood aloof
till the man should in some manner redeem himself, and repent of his
horrid blasphemy. But one person persistently defied Church and people,
Cure and voyageur. Parpon openly and boldly walked with Pomfrette,
talked with him, and occasionally visited his house.

Luc made hard shifts to live. He grew everything that he ate, vegetables
and grains. Parpon showed him how to make his own flour in primitive
fashion, for no miller in any parish near would sell him flour, and he
had no money to buy it, nor would any one who knew him give him work.
And after his return to Pontiac he never asked for it. His mood was
defiant, morbid, stern. His wood he chopped from the common known as
No-Man's Land. His clothes he made himself out of the skins of deer that
he shot; when his powder and shot gave out, he killed the deer with bow
and arrow.

The end came at last. Luc was taken ill. For four days, all alone, he
lay burning with fever and inflammation, and when Parpon found him he
was almost dead. Then began a fight for life again, in which Parpon was
the only physician; for Pomfrette would not allow the Little Chemist or
a doctor near him. Parpon at last gave up hope; but one night, when he
came back from the village, he saw, to his joy, old Mme. Degardy ("Crazy
Joan" she was called) sitting by Pomfrette's bedside. He did not disturb
her, for she had no love for h