Page:Harris Dickson--The black wolf's breed.djvu/186

164 The Villa being a strange ground, it fretted me to be alone therein, with nothing to think of but this trouble of my friends. And Madame de Chartrain, did I blame her? Blame Jerome? Yes—no. I hardly knew. Viewed at a distance and impartially, such things strike us with aversion, and we are quick to condemn. But the more I thought the nearer I came to concluding it took something more than a mere mummery to make a wife. All the ceremonials and benedictions and lighted candles and high-sounding phrases could not bind a woman's heart, where that heart was free, or called some other man its lord. Yet the bare fact remained, this woman was a wife, and to me, at least, that name had always been a sacred and holy one.

To what vain or wise conclusions my cogitations may have led me, I conceive not, for another small matter now quite absorbed my whole attention. It was the beginning of that one dear hope which speedily banished all others. It is said the trippant tread of Fate doth leave no print upon the sand to mark its passage, nor doth she sound a note of warning that the waiting hand may grasp her garments as she flies.

A gleam of white in one of the summer houses caught my roving eye, and quite aimlessly I passed the door. A chit of a child crouched upon the floor, and leaned forward on the benches, weeping as though each sob were like to burst her little heart. I grant it was no affair of mine, yet my tears were ever wont to start, and eyes play traitor to mine arm at sight of woman's trouble. Without thinking one whit, I stepped in be-