"I'm not so foolish as I look," he said, trying to smile away his emotion. "If the State chooses to hunt him out and put him to trial and punishment, I don't say I'd stand in the way; that's the State's business; that's for the public safety. But it's too late--you and Bonnyventure have made it too late--for me to help any one, least of all the one I love, to be revenged." He saw his words were prevailing and followed them up. "Oh! you don't need it any more than you really want it, Josephine. You mustn't ever look toward it again. I throw myself and my love across the path. Don't walk over us. Take my hand; give me yours; come another way; and if you'll let such a poor excuse for a teacher and guide help you, I'll help you all I can, to learn to say 'forgive us our trespasses.' You can begin, now, by forgiving me. I may have thrown away my last chance with you, but I can't help it; it's my love that spoke. And if I have spoiled all and if I've got to pay for the tears you're shedding with the greatest disappointment of my life, still I've had the glory and the sanctification of loving you. If I must say, I can say, ''Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.' Must I? Are you going to make me say that?" Zosephine, still in tears, silently and with drooping head pushed her way across the stile and left him standing on the other side. He sent one pleading word after her: "Isn't it most too late to go the rest of the way alone?" She turned, lifted her eyes to his for an instant, and nodded. In a twinkling he was at her side. She glanced at him again and said quite contentedly: "Yass; _'tis_ so," and they went the short remnant of the way together. CHAPTER XII. THE BEAUSOLEILS AND ST. PIERRES.