“Sacrifice, little sister of the rose!  Then there is another bond between us!  Sacrifice!  My God! the curse that is sometimes put upon the innocent!” He put the tip of his forefinger under her chin and lifted her face from her arms.  “I haven’t any right to tell you that I love you.  I must march on.  I cannot even explain to you why I cannot take you in my arms and plead for your love.”

Her eyes told him what answer his pleading would win, and he trembled and stepped away from her.

“Since it can never be,” she said, brokenly, “you may as well know that I—­that I do—­I couldn’t help it.  I am forward—­I am bold—­it is shameless—­but I never loved anybody before.”  She put out both her hands, and he took them.

Old Etienne dragged doggedly at his work, his lantern lighting his toil.  The looms clacked behind the dusty windows which splashed their radiance upon the gloom.

“It is a bit strange that now another wonderful but bitter experience should come into my life on this spot where we are standing,” he told her.  He spoke quietly, trying to calm her; striving to crowd back his own emotions.  “I guess fate picked this spot as the right place for us to say farewell to each other.  I stood here one day and saw old Etienne draw a dead woman to the surface of the water, and I found a letter in her breast and I took her key and went and found little Rosemarie.”

She stared at him, her eyes very wide in the darkness.

“And that dead woman—­she was the mother of the little girl?”

“Yes, a poor weaver that the mills had broken.  And Rosemarie and I sat all night under this tree.  It is too long a story for you now.  No matter about that, but I—­”

“I know about Rosemarie,” she confessed.

“And my heart opened and something new came into it, little sister of the rose.  And now on this spot I stand, and all joy and hope and love are dead for me when I give back to you these dear little hands.”

She was still staring at him.

“But I must not—­I dare not speak of it,” he proceeded.  His grasp grew tense.  “See how I am trying to be calm?  I will not loose my grip on myself.  Our doom was written for us by other hands, dear heart.  When it was summer I walked here with Rosemarie and play-mamma.  Now it is autumn and—­”

“Play-mamma!” she gasped.

“Yes, a dear, good girl who worked hard in the mill and who was very good to our Rosemarie; I was making poor shifts at buying a little girl’s clothes, and Zelie Dionne was wise in those matters and was busy with her needle.”

“I hope you been excuse me,” broke in old Etienne.  “I overheard the name of Zelie Dionne, but I don’t mean to listen.  I have some good news for you, M’sieu’ Farr, what you don’t hear because you ain’t been on this place for long time.  And it is not good news for you, ma’m’selle, for now you can’t get acquaint with very nice Canadian girl.  The big beau Jean have come down here from Tadousac and now he own nice farm and they will get marry and be very happy up in the habitant country.”