reat love in her possessed her so strongly that all other things were
half unreal.

She did her daily housework from sheer habit, and she studied because he
had told her to do it, and because with the sweet, stubborn, credulous
faith of her youth, she never doubted that he would return.

Otherwise there was no perception of real life in her; she dreamed and
prayed, and prayed and dreamed, and never ceased to do either one or the
other, even when she was scattering potato-peels to the fowls, or shaking
carrots loose of the soil, or sweeping the snow from her hut door, or
going out in the raw dark dawn as the single little sad bell of St. Guido
tolled through the stillness for the first mass.

For though even Father Francis looked angered at her because he thought
she was stubborn, and hid some truth and some shame from him at
confession, yet she went resolutely and oftener than ever to kneel in the
dusty, dusky, crumbling old church, for it was all she could do for him
who was absent--so she thought--and she did not feel quite so far away
from him when she was beseeching Christ to have care of his soul and of
his body.

All her pretty dreams were dead.

She never heard any story in the robin's song, or saw any promise in the
sunset clouds, or fancied that angels came about her in the night--never
now.

The fields were gray and sad; the birds were little brown things; the
stars were cold and far off; the people she had used to care for were
like mere shadows that went by her meaningless and without interest, and
all she thought of was the one step that never came: all she wanted was
the one touch she never felt.

"You have done wrong, Bebee, and you will not own it," said the few
neighbors who ever spoke to her.

Bebee looked at them with wistful, uncomprehending eyes.

"I have done no wrong," she said gently, but no one believed her.

A girl did not shut herself up and wane pale and thin for nothing, so
they reasoned. She might have sinned as she had liked if she had been
sensible after it, and married Jeannot.

But to fret mutely, and shut her lips, and seem as though she had done
nothing,--that was guilt indeed.

For her village, in its small way, thought as the big world thinks.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Full winter came.

The snow was deep, and the winds drove the people with whips of ice along
the dreary country roads and the steep streets of the city. The bells of
the dogs and the mules sounded sad