But they grew afraid of her—­afraid of that sad, changeless, far-away look in her eves, and of the mute weariness that was on her—­and, being perplexed, were sure, like all ignorant creatures, that what was secret must be also vile.

So they hung aloof, and let her alone, and by and by scarcely nodded as they passed her but said to Jeannot,—­

“You were spared a bad thing, lad:  the child was that grand painter’s light-o’-love, that is plain to see.  The mischief all comes of the stuff old Antoine filled her head with—­a stray little by-blow of chickweed that he cockered up like a rare carnation.  Oh! do not fly in a rage, Jeannot; the child is no good, and would have made an honest man rue.  Take heart of grace, and praise the saints, and marry Katto’s Lisa.”

But Jeannot would never listen to the slanderers, and would never look at Lisa, even though the door of the little hut was always closed against him; and whenever he met Bebee on the highway she never seemed to see him more than she saw the snow that her sabots were treading.

One night in the midwinter-time old Annemie died.

Bebee found her in the twilight with her head against the garret window, and her left side all shrivelled and useless.  She had a little sense left, and a few fleeting breaths to draw.

“Look for the brig,” she muttered.  “You will not see the flag at the masthead for the fog to-night; but his socks are dry and his pipe is ready.  Keep looking—­keep looking—­she will be in port to-night.”

But her dead sailor never came into port; she went to him.  The poor, weakened, faithful old body of her was laid in the graveyard of the poor, and the ships came and went under the empty garret window, and Bebee was all alone.

She had no more anything to work for, or any bond with the lives of others.  She could live on the roots of her garden and the sale of her hens’ eggs, and she could change the turnips and carrots that grew in a little strip of her ground for the quantity of bread that she needed.

So she gave herself up to the books, and drew herself more and more within from the outer world.  She did not know that the neighbors thought very evil of her; she had only one idea in her mind—­to be more worthy of him against he should return.

The winter passed away somehow, she did not know how.

It was a long, cold, white blank of frozen silence:  that was all.  She studied hard, and had got a quaint, strange, deep, scattered knowledge out of her old books; her face had lost all its roundness and color, but, instead, the forehead had gained breadth and the eyes had the dim fire of a student’s.

Every night when she shut her volumes she thought,—­

“I am a little nearer him.  I know a little more.”

Just so every morning, when she bathed her hands in the chilly water, she thought to herself, “I will make my skin as soft as I can for him, that it may be like the ladies’ he has loved.”