He went out now and sat on the doorstep, talking to Mère Lunde. Some one was playing on a fiddle, interspersed with rollicking songs, and the sound floated up to them. There was a great deal of joy in the world, but his heart was heavy. Renée flung herself on the bed and wept angrily, bitterly. Barbe Gardepier had come into her life again and was free. She had summoned Uncle Gaspard this first night to her side. Had he loved her a little long ago? Would she try to win him now? Oh, what a dreary outlook! And she had been so happy! CHAPTER XVII RIVALS Gaspard Denys had wondered more than once about Barbe’s married life, and at Gardepier’s second visit to St. Louis he was quite convinced that he was not the kind of man to make a tender, clinging heart happy. Women throve and blossomed in an atmosphere of love; grew cold, pale and listless when this was denied. It was their natural sustenance. Had this hastened Renée Freneau’s death? And when he saw Marchand’s devotion and Wawataysee’s delicious joy in it, he could not tell why, but he wished such a marriage had been Barbe’s good fortune. He never asked himself what might have happened if he had not gone to Canada for Renée de Longueville. He had started adventuring first in a desperate frame of mind, and then grown to like it exceedingly. He had purchased the old house to assist a family in distress who had lost husband and father. On his way home with his little Renée he had resolved to set up a household, to keep the child under his guardianship, for he knew well Freneau would not want her. She was so clinging, so sweet. She was a part of the adorable girl he had loved. If he had been certain of her happiness he might have let her fade from his mind, but a fear had always rankled with a thorn-prick. Did she know, would she know that he meant to lavish the love that should have been hers on the child? What was that country like? Surely the soul could not linger in the grave, and if it was given to one to have glimpses of those left behind, she must rejoice. With his heart so engrossed he could not think, indeed, was not tempted to a strong feeling for any other woman. Barbe was pretty and sweet—young men were attracted to her—and he felt quite old compared with her. Then there was so much business to occupy him, and presently Barbe was married without a sigh of regret on his part. The little jealous feeling Renée displayed rather amused him. He hardly understood the child’s passionate fondness, but was not her exclusive love something she inherited from her mother? He liked to think so.