Page:Hopkinson Smith--armchair at the inn.djvu/229

 and did not return to my old home for some years. Then one day, in the effort to pick up once more the threads of my old life, there suddenly popped into my mind Loyette’s love story. I sent at once for one of the old servants who had lived with us since before I was born.

“‘And Loyette—the girl with the big ugly father—did he relent and did she marry the young fellow she was in love with?’

“‘No, madame,’ she answered sadly, with a shake of the head; ‘she married the cattleman, Marceaux, and a sad mess they made of it, for he was old enough then to be her father, and he is now half paralyzed, and goes around in a chair on wheels, and there are no children—and Loyette, who was so pretty and so happy, must follow him about like a dog tied to a blind man, and she never laughs the whole livelong day. That was her father’s work—he made her do it, and now she must pay the price.’

“‘And what became of the pig of a father?’ I had hated him before; I loathed him now.

“‘Dead; so is her mother.’

“‘And the young fellow?’

“‘He had to do his service, and was gone three years, and when he came back it was too late.’