“I think him horreebl’,” Marie would answer.  “Why do you read of such things, Jacques!  Why you not have the good Bible, as we have him in France, why?”

“There is but one Bible, Mary, but one in the world; and it is all good and beautiful, only our sinful eyes cannot always see the glory of it.”

“Ah, but no!” Marie would persist, shaking her head gravely.  “Mere Jeanne’s Bible was all ozer, so I tell you.  Not black and horreebl’, no! but red, all red, wiz gold on him, and in his side pictures, all bright and preetty, and good words, good ones, what make the good feel in my side.  Yes, that is the Bible I have liked.”

“Mary, I tell you it was no Bible, unless it was this very one.  They bind it in any colour they like, don’t you see, child?  It isn’t the cover that makes the book.  I fear you weren’t brought up a Christian, Mary.  It is a terrible thing to think of, my poor little wife.  You must let me teach you; you must talk with Elder Beach on Sunday afternoons.  Assuredly he will help you, if I am found unworthy.”

But Marie would have none of this.  She was a Christian, she maintained as stoutly as her great fear of her husband would permit.  She had been baptized, and taught all that one should be taught.  But it was all different.  Her Bible told that we must love people, but love everybody, always, all times; and this black book said that we must kill them with swords, and dash them against stones, and pray bad things to happen to them.  It stood to reason that it was not the same Bible, hein?  At this Jacques De Arthenay started, and took himself by the hair with both hands, as he did when something moved him strongly.  “Those were bad people, Mary!” he cried.  “Don’t you see? they withstood the Elect, and they were slain.  And we must think about these things, and think of our sins, and the sins of others as a warning to ourselves.  Sin is awful, black, horrible! and its wages is death,—­death, do you hear?”

When he cried out in this way, like a wild creature, Marie did not dare to speak again; but she would murmur under her breath in French, as she bent lower over her knitting, “Nevertheless, Mere Jeanne’s good Lord was good, and yours—­“; and then she would quietly turn a hairpin upside down in her hair, for it was quite certain that if she caught Jacques’s eye when he was in this mood, her hand would wither, or her hair fall out, or at the very least the cream all sour in the pans; and when one’s hands were righteously busy, as with knitting, one might make the horns with other things, and a hairpin was very useful.  She wished she had a little coral hand, such as she had once seen at a fair, with the fingers making the horns in the proper manner; it would be a great convenience, she thought with a sigh.

But he was always sorry after these dark times; and when he sat and held her hand, as he did sometimes, silent for the most part, but gazing at her with eyes of absolute, unspeakable love, Marie was pleased, almost content:  as nearly content as one could be with the half of one’s life taken away.