"Well, Jean, I will take you at your word. That house of yours--I hate it. Those tourists, those people who walk about staring at everybody--I detest them. How could you bring them here to spoil the peace and joy of our lovely valley, to change our ancestral ways, to turn everything upside down? But we will send them away, back to Quebec, to Montreal, to Pittsburg, never to return, and everything will be as before. Yes, they shall go home, and the house we will dedicate to another purpose." "Gabrielle," said Jean, earnestly, "why did you not tell me this before--a year ago? Now it is too late." "Too late? Why, then, if you love me as you say!" "Because I have embarked on this enterprise after much thought and long deliberation. I have put into it my strength of body and brain, my property, my life, my honour--and it is too late to turn back. The ship is laden, the anchor weighed, and we have put out to sea with a fair wind. Return to harbour? By no means. You do not ask it, Gabrielle." "There," said Gabrielle, with a sob, "what did I tell you? You do not love me. It is yourself that you love, Jean, and all those stupid plans of yours." "But no, Gabrielle, all are for you, as the means to the end. How can one have the end without the means?" "Oh, I could tell you very well, but I will not. It is easy to see that you have made up your mind. Well, there is another who has a mind of her own. Adieu, Monsieur. Here our paths divide. Take the broad, dusty road, if you like. For me, I take this little path through the woods--alone. No, you shall not." "Gabrielle, this is most unfair, cruel, heartless." "It may be so, but I know another who is cruel, who has no heart--it is Monseigneur Jean Baptiste Giroux." With this she went away through the woods, humming a song about a gay, inconstant lover, quite different from Jean Baptiste: "Papillon, tu es volage! Tu ressembl’ à mon amant. L’amour est un badinage, L’amour est un passe-temps, Quand j’ai mon amant J’ai le coeur content." *CHAPTER XIII* *THE RETURN OF PAMPHILE* "Ah, there is mine host of La Folie," said Mère Tabeau, in a loud voice, as Jean, in a brown study, dead to the world, was passing her place on his way home. "Jean, Jean Baptiste!" she called, but still he gave no heed. "Monsieur Jean, Monsieur Jean Baptiste, Monsieur Giroux, Monseigneur! Why the deuce does not his lordship stop? I must run after him, I see." The old woman, with surprising agility, ran after Jean, plucked him by the sleeve, and immediately resumed her cringing attitude, leaning heavily upon her staff. "There he goes," she whined. "His lordship does not see his old friends, does not hear them, even, when they speak." "Oh, pardon me, Madame Tabeau," said Jean, politely. "I was seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Of late I have become absent-minded, I think."