"That is easily explained." Crabbe continued to look at and think of
his pipe, oblivious of the white countenance behind him. "I spoke
after a fashion. The thing--I mean our relations--amounted virtually
to a marriage. The difference was in your thought--in your mind. You
pictured a ceremony, a religious rite, whereas I intended to convey the
idea of a state, a mutual feeling----"

"You allowed me to think of a ceremony, you encouraged me to think of
it."

"Nothing of the sort. Besides, I was not sober at the time. Make
allowances, my Christian friend, always make allowances."

"Then what of the child? If you mentioned anything it should have been
the child."

At this Crabbe turned, and so sudden was his movement that Ringfield
retreated as if caught guiltily; in doing so he very nearly slipped on
the icy rocks that sloped imperceptibly towards the rushing fall, and
he was about to warn the guide, who was farther down the bank than
himself when the latter, rising abruptly, cried:--

"The child? What child? There never was any child. Thank heaven, we
were spared that complication!"

"You deny it? You deny it in the face of the likeness, of the stories
of the village and the entire countryside; in face of the misery its
existence has caused her--the mother, and of the proof in your own
sodden, embruted condition, in face of her own admission----"

"Admission? It is impossible she can have admitted what never
occurred. What did she say?"

"She implied--implied--made me think----"

"Made you think?" said the guide in disgust. "Made you think? That's
what's been the matter with you all along;--you think too much. You
wanted a bigger parish, Reverend Father, to occupy your time and mind.
St. Ignace was too small."

This tone of banter was the one least calculated to appease the jealous
and vindictive spirit holding Ringfield in its grasp. He became
whiter, more agitated, and held up one hand as if to guard himself, yet
there was nothing furious in Crabbe's manner; rather the contrary, for
he was relieved at hearing of the natural misapprehension by which he
had been looked upon as Angeel's father. But Ringfield was difficult
to convince. No gossip had reached him where he lay at Archibald
Groom's, with Madame Poussette watching him, nor at the Hotel Champlain
where he had staggered the night before for a mad moment only, as he
asked for news of Crabbe and was told that he gone back to St. Ign