"But will her husband agree to share her love? Husbands are jealous sometimes," she commented rather gayly.
"He is like a son to me, and he knows it. You see, I am old enough to be his father also."
"Ah, M'sieu Denys, you should have had children of your very own, and a woman to love in your home. You have such a noble and tender heart you could have made some one so happy."
Her heart beat as she said it. Why could he not be roused to the hope even now?
"I think you know that I loved the child's mother, and that we were unfairly separated. If she had lived--but she died. And when I heard the little one was sent across the sea by her father, who had small regard for her, it was as if her mother, leaning over the wall of heaven, called to me, and I did what I knew would set her heart at rest."
"But she had heaven and all the saints. And in that land of the blest one cannot long for human loves. It is to those left on earth to whom they are precious," she returned, with a little longing in her tone. She had been waiting for Renée's marriage to take her out of his life. Why should the child have so much?
"I think they know, those blessed ones. Ah, madame, if you had been dying, instead of your husband, and leaving the little one, would you not have pleaded with the very angels that some one might be raised up to care for her? And if that had been one to whom she would be doubly dear! So the child in one sense has been like my own."
And always her rival, Barbe Gardepier felt. Her last hope seemed to drop as one lets fall a withered flower that has been sweet and is still freighted with some dear remembrances.
"You will come in and say good-by to-morrow?"
Why should things go so wrong in the world? Renée Freneau defrauded of a lifelong happiness, of life itself, and she who had seen such a blissful possibility twice in her short life shut out from what would have been her brightest happiness.
He went his way thoughtfully. He had been so long used to a man's liberty that he did not care to enchain himself with matrimony. And surely he would give Renée no rival to her children.
It was a gorgeous day and the fleet of boats glided out with music and many a "_Bon voyage!_" The little girl had vanished, but Renée remembered the first night she came, when in the bend of the river they passed the old ruined heap, and the old French post-house going to decay. Was it in some other life? She still had Uncle Denys, and she was glad. What a wonderful thing it was to love a woman's memory all these years!