tte, "Prosper is not just any of God's
creatures. He is mine. How could I love him too much? Besides, I don't
do it. It does itself. How can I help it?"

"It is a malady," sighed the old woman shaking her head. "It is a
malady of youth, my child. There is danger in it--and for Prosper too!
You make an idol of a man and you spoil him. You upset his mind. Men
are like that. You will bring trouble upon your man, if you don't take
care. God will send you a warning--perhaps a countersign of death."

"What is that," cried Toinette, her heart shaking within her breast,
"what do you mean with your countersign of death?"

The old woman nodded her head mysteriously and leaned forward,
putting her gnarled hand on Toinette's round knee and peering with her
faded eyes into the girl's wild-flower face.

"It is the word," said she, "that death speaks before he crosses the
threshold. He gives a sign--sometimes one thing, and sometimes
another--before he comes in. Our folk in Brittany have understood
about that for a long time. My grandmother has told me. It always
comes to one who has gone too far, to one who is like you. You must be
careful. You must go to Mass every day and pray that your malady may
be restrained."

So Toinette, having tasted of the strange chalice of fear, went to the
church early every morning while Prosper was away and prayed that she
might not love him so much as to make God jealous. The absurdity of
such a prayer never occurred to her. She made it with childish
simplicity. Probably it did no harm. For when Prosper came home she
loved him more than ever. Then she went to High Mass every Sunday
morning with him and prayed for other things.

After four years there came a day when Prosper must go away for a
longer absence. There was an affair connected with the Department of
Forests and Fisheries, which could only be arranged at Ottawa. Thither
he must go to see the lawyers, and there he must stay perhaps a month,
perhaps two.

You can imagine that Toinette was desolate. The draught of fear that
_tante_ Bergeron had given her grew more potent and bitter in her
simple heart. And the strange thing was that, although she was
ignorant of it, there was apparently something true in the warning
which the old woman had given. For jealousy--that vine with flying
seeds and strangling creepers--had taken root in the heart of Prosper
Leclere.

Yes, I know it is contrary to all the rules and to all the proverbs,
but s