“Alone, monseigneur, save for the woman and the little _bien fils de son père_. In these days the tribes are much broken up. They wander piecemeal. There are rumours abroad--hopes, prospects, as if it were prelude to the advent of a Messiah. I think, perhaps, I have seen to-day a harbinger--an angel bearing tidings.” He gazed at the young man with large solemn eyes. His face was full of a wistful patience--not brutalised, but mild and intelligent. “Oh, truly, I am the devil of an angel!” said Ned; and he waved his hand and turned. “Monseigneur, I will never forget,” said the Cagot. CHAPTER IX. In Nicette’s little lodge, doors and windows stood all open. Even then the languid air that entered fell fainting almost on the threshold. The heat of many preceding days seemed accumulated in vast bales of clouds piled up from the horizon. It scintillated, livid and coppery, through its enormous envelopes, eating its way forth with menace of a flood of fire. Obviously the dairy was the nearest approach to a temperate zone, and thither Ned bent his steps, carrying his paint-box and canvas. He found the girl there, as he had expected. She was seated knitting near the flung casement, wherethrough came a hot scent of geranium flowers. In the blinding garden without silence panted like a drouthy dog. Only the horn, high on its perch, found breath to bemoan itself, gathering up the folds of muteness with an attenuated thread of complaint. Mademoiselle Legrand looked cool and fragrant, for all the house was an oven; but a little bloom of damp was on her face, like dew on a rose. In a corner, standing with his hands behind his back and his front to the wall, Baptiste, the sad-eyed child, did penance for some transgression, it would appear. “I must not lose my Madonna for a misunderstanding,” said Ned. Nicette rose to her feet, flushing vividly to her brow. The weary white face of the boy was turned in astonishment to the intruder. “Monsieur,” said the _portière_, in a little agitated voice, “you must not ask me. For one you hold so cheap to represent the stainless mother! It cannot be, monsieur.” Ned deposited his paraphernalia on a chair, went up to his whilom model, and took her hands in his with gentle force. “Nicette,” he murmured, so that the child should not hear him, “I refuse, you know, to accept this responsibility. It is your own consciousness of justification, or otherwise, that is in question. The mother had a human as well as a divine side. I will use you for the first.” “Use me!” she whispered. “Monsieur----” She drooped her head--tried to withdraw her hands. Her lips faltered desperately on the word. “Tell me the truth, little Nicette. May not a saint love guava jelly? It is a fruit of the sweet earth--perhaps the very manna of the Israelites.” He held her young soft wrists in hostage for an answer--much concerned for an exchange of confidence. The girl, making a _lac d’amour_ of her fingers, suddenly came to her decision.