? I
will raise it: you shall fix your own price."

Flushing red with shame, Hetty said hotly:

"I have never worked for the money, Dr. Macgowan; only for enough for my
living. Money has nothing to do with it. Good-morning."

"That's just what comes of depending on women," growled Dr. Macgowan.
"They're all alike; no stability to 'em! What under heaven can it be?
She's surely too old to have got any idea of marrying into her head.
I'll go and see Father Antoine, and see if he can't influence her."

But when Dr. Macgowan, a few days later, reached Father Antoine's
cottage, he was met by news which slew on the instant all his hopes of
ever seeing Mrs. Hibba Smailli in his House again as a nurse. Hetty and
her husband had spent the previous evening with Father Antoine, and had
laid their case fully before him. Hetty had given him permission to tell
all the facts to Dr. Macgowan, under the strictest pledges of secrecy.

"'Pon my word! 'pon my word!" said the doctor, "the most extraordinary
thing I ever heard of! Who'd have thought that calm, clearheaded woman
would ever have committed such a folly? It's a case of monomania; a real
monomania, Father Antoine; never can be sure of such a brain's that;
may take another, any day; clear case of monomania; most uncomfortable!
uncomfortable! so embarrassing! don't you know? eh? What's going to be
done now? How does the man take it? Is he a gentleman? Hang me, if
I wouldn't let a woman stay where she was, that had served me such a
trick!"

Father Antoine laughed a low pleasant laugh.

"And that would be by how much you had loved her, is it not?" he said.
"He is a physician also, the good Aunt's husband, and he understands. He
will take her with him; and, if he did not, she would die; for, now that
it is plain to her, how grievously she hath caused him to sorrow, her
love is like a fever till she can make amends for all."

"Amends!" growled Dr. Macgowan, "that's just like a woman too. Amends!
I'd like to know what amends there can be for such a scandal, such a
disgrace: 'pon my word she must have been mad; that's the only way of
accounting for it."

"It is not that there will be scandal," replied Father Antoine. "I am
to marry them in the chapel, and there is no one in all the wide world,
except to you and to me, that it will be known that they have been
husband and wife before."

"Eh! What! Married again!" exclaimed Dr. Macgowan. "Well, that's like
a woman too. Why, what