aut.

"I wish, Aileen, you'd get over your grudge against him--"

"What grudge?"

"You can tell that best yourself--there's no use your playing off--I
don't pretend to know anything about it, but I can put my finger on the
very year and the very month you turned against Champney Googe who
never had anything but a pleasant word for you ever since you was so
high--" he indicated a few feet on his whipstock--"and first come to
Champo. 'T ain't generous, Aileen; 't ain't like a true woman; 't ain't
like you to go back on a man just because he has sinned. He stands in
need of us all now, although they say at the sheds he can hold his own
with the best of 'em--I heard the manager telling Emlie he'd be foreman
of Shed Number Two if he kept on, for he's the only one can get on with
all of the foreigners; guess Jim McCann knows--"

"What do you mean by the year and the month?"

"I mean what I say. 'T was in August seven years ago--but p'r'aps you
don't remember," he said. His sarcasm was intentional.

She made no reply, but smiled to herself--a smile so exasperating to
Octavius that he sulked a few minutes in silence. After another eighth
of a mile, she spoke with apparent interest:

"What makes you think Mrs. Champney wants to see Father Honore about her
nephew?"

"Because it looks that way. This afternoon, when you was out, she got me
to move Mr. Louis' picture from the library to her room, and I had to
hang it on the wall opposite her bed--" Octavius paused--"I believe she
don't think she'll last long, and she don't look as if she could either.
Last week she had Emlie up putting a codicil to her will. The nurse told
me she was one of the witnesses, she and Emlie and the doctor--catch her
letting me see any of her papers!" He reined into the road that led to
the sheds.

"I hope to God she'll do him justice this time," he spoke aloud, but
evidently to himself.

"How do you mean, Tave?"

"I mean by giving him what's his by rights; that's what I mean." He
spoke emphatically.

"He wouldn't be the man I think he is if he ever took a cent from
her--not after what she did!" she exclaimed hotly.

Octavius turned and looked at her in amazement.

"That's the first time I ever heard you speak up for Champney Googe, an'
I've known you since before you knew him. Well, it's better late than
never." He spoke with a degree of satisfaction in his tone that did not
escape Aileen. "Which door shall I leave you at?"

"Round at