“Fe chaud,” she remarked again, taking the chair he offered and continuing to ply the fan.

Pere Jerome laid his hat upon a chest of drawers, sat down opposite her, and said, as he wiped his kindly face: 

“Well, Madame Carraze?”

Gentle as the tone was, she started, ceased fanning, lowered the fan to her knee, and commenced smoothing its feathers.

“Pere Jerome”—­She gnawed her lip and shook her head.

“Well?”

She burst into tears.

The priest rose and loosed the curtain of one of the windows.  He did it slowly—­as slowly as he could, and, as he came back, she lifted her face with sudden energy, and exclaimed: 

“Oh, Pere Jerome, de law is brogue! de law is brogue!  I brogue it!  ’Twas me!  ’Twas me!”

The tears gushed out again, but she shut her lips very tight, and dumbly turned away her face.  Pere Jerome waited a little before replying; then he said, very gently: 

“I suppose dad muss ‘ave been by accyden’, Madame Delphine?”

The little father felt a wish—­one which he often had when weeping women were before him—­that he were an angel instead of a man, long enough to press the tearful cheek upon his breast, and assure the weeper God would not let the lawyers and judges hurt her.  He allowed a few moments more to pass, and then asked: 

“N’est-ce-pas, Madame Delphine?  Daz ze way, ain’t it?’

“No, Pere Jerome, no.  My daughter—­oh, Pere Jerome, I bethroath my lill’ girl—­to a w’ite man!” And immediately Madame Delphine commenced savagely drawing a thread in the fabric of her skirt with one trembling hand, while she drove the fan with the other.  “Dey goin’ git marry.”

On the priest’s face came a look of pained surprise.  He slowly said: 

“Is dad possib’, Madame Delphine?”

“Yass,” she replied, at first without lifting her eyes; and then again, “Yass,” looking full upon him through her tears, “yaas, ’tis tru’.”

He rose and walked once across the room, returned, and said, in the Creole dialect: 

“Is he a good man—­without doubt?”

“De bez in God’s world!” replied Madame Delphine, with a rapturous smile.

“My poor, dear friend,” said the priest, “I am afraid you are being deceived by somebody.”

There was the pride of an unswerving faith in the triumphant tone and smile with which she replied, raising and slowly shaking her head: 

“Ah-h, no-o-o, Miche!  Ah-h, no, no!  Not by Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle!”

Pere Jerome was confounded.  He turned again, and, with his hands at his back and his eyes cast down, slowly paced the floor.

“He is a good man,” he said, by and by, as if he thought aloud.  At length he halted before the woman “Madame Delphine”—­

The distressed glance with which she had been following his steps was lifted to his eyes.