Marie took up her cap and looked toward the door, then, turning, she said:
"I will take him, maman."
But her mother answered:
"No, Marie; thou art always a good, willing girl; go alone. The walk through the forest will rest thee. Only come back quickly; thy father and brothers will soon be in and hungry for their supper."
"Maman," cried Marie, dropping upon her knees beside her mother and hiding her face upon her bosom, "do not call me good. The word fills me with shame. I am not so good a daughter as you deserve."
"Ah, little one, thou hast been a comfort to me all thy life," said the mother caressingly. "Thou art a good modest girl. Now go. See! little Jacques is wondering at thy tears, and so is thy mother."
Marie still knelt.
"I have been thinking all day of my sins of how often I have pained you and given you trouble. Maman, can you forgive it all, and believe that I sometimes sin because I do not know which of two things it is right to do? And will you love me always, even if I should sometimes be far away from you?"
"Always, always, Marie," answered her mother, kissing her, and thinking that her grief meant no more than that which had prompted a hundred similar confessions.
"My sweet maman," said the girl, as she arose.
Patting the baby's waving hair and kissing his warm cheek, she started across the fields toward the forest, a corner of which she must cross to reach the pasture.
As she entered the dense shade, she began to look anxiously around, and as soon as she became accustomed to the dusk, she saw coming toward her, under the trees, a young man. She ran hastily to him, as if fearing that that which she had to say would be left unsaid, unless she spoke at once.
"I cannot go with thee, Antoine, I only came to say adieu. Oh, forgive me for disappointing thee, but I cannot go."
"Cannot go!" he exclaimed, stepping back and looking at her angrily. "Thou art jesting with me, Marie; thou wilt not break thy promise."
"Indeed, I am not jesting, Antoine, dear Antoine. Forgive me, and try still to love me a little. I will always be true to thee, and never love, never marry, another, but I cannot go with thee," she said, laying her hand upon his arm.
He shook it off impatiently.
"Marie, I have risked my life—or my liberty, and that is more than life to me—to come here. I have waited day after day for thee to decide which thou didst love best, thy mother or me, and now, after keeping me here until thy vanity is sufficiently flattered, thou sendest me away—thou stayest behind to laugh at me—to——"
"Oh, Antoine, how canst thou speak so cruelly? Let me go back to my mother. Forget the forest and its wild life. Come back to us. Come back to the church and proper ways, and soon the dislike of my parents will vanish; they will give their consent to our marriage."
"I cannot go back to be treated like a forgiven outlaw. Come with me if thou wouldst save my soul. With thee—in another place—I will try to live as thou wishest. But if thou forsakest me now, I will go my own way; I will live the life I prefer," and Marie's lover stood darkly regarding her.
Standing together, they formed a picture, Rembrandtesque in its lights and shades. The girl, in the simple dress of her class, with the sunshine of the meadows seeming still to rest in the waves of her bright hair, and a broad expanse of golden light reaching into the forest after her. Facing her the hunter stood, picturesque at any time in his half-civilized, half-savage dress, but doubly so now, the centering point of the deep shadows. He, his dress and his manner harmonized with the forest; his strong right arm was thrown impatiently up to keep back a green branch which would have swept against his handsome face, while his left hand was extended—waiting for the next word—either to grasp or thrust away the little hard hands she held out to him. There was no sound except the summer wind, which was too languid to come far into the wood, and only stirred the berry bushes and tall grass which grew along its edge. His eyes never left her face, save when she turned her head to look back at the sunny meadow, the little stone cottage, whose roof she could see, and the shining river beyond. Then she turned to her lover again, and to the silent forest which stretched behind him, and her eyes drooped to the mosses and lichens which grew at his feet, while she tried to find an answer for him. But she was too unused to self-decision to find one, so she at last only looked up, and, reaching out her hands, said with a helpless sob:
"Oh, Antoine!"
