The Beloved Traitor (Mystery Classic). Frank L. Packard

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      It was half clay, half mud; but out of it one could fashion the little poupées, the dolls for the children. They would not last very long, it was true; but then one fashioned them quickly, and there was delight in making them.

      Jean dug a piece of the clay with his sheaf knife, leaned over from the bank of the little creek, and moistened it in the water. He dug another, moistened that, moulded the two together—and Marie-Louise smiled at him a little tremulously, as their eyes met.

      The tears were very near to those brave dark eyes since three days ago. Jean mechanically added a third piece of clay to the other two. Much had happened in those three days—all Bernay-sur-Mer seemed changed since that afternoon when Gaston, so Marie-Louise had told him, seeing a boat adrift and fearing there might be some one in it, had tried during a lull in the storm to reach it with her assistance, and an oar had broken, and the tide on the ebb had driven them close to the Perigeau where they had swamped, and somehow Gaston had been flung upon the outer edges of the reef, and the boat, sodden, weighted, following, had crushed him against the rocks.

      Jean looked at Marie-Louise again. She was all in black now—she and good Mother Fregeau had made the dress between them for the church that morning, when Father Anton had said the mass for Gaston. But Marie-Louise was not looking at him—her elbows were on the ground, her chin was cupped in her hands, and the long black lashes veiled her eyes. She had not told him any more of the story—Jean could picture that for himself. How many times must she have risked her life to have pulled Gaston to the rocks higher up upon the reef! A daughter of France, Gaston had called her. Bon Dieu, but she was that, with her courage and her strength! One would not think the strength was there, but then the black dress did not cling like the wet clothes that other night to show the litheness of the rounded limbs.

      His fingers began to work into the clay, unnaturally diffident and hesitant at first, not with the deft certainty of their custom, but as though groping tentatively for something that was curiously intangible, that eluded them. Marie-Louise, as she had been that night, was living before him again—the lines of her form so full of grace and so beautiful, so full of the virility of her young womanhood, the shapely head, the hair streaming in abandon about her shoulders—and it was like and yet not like that great bronze statue so often in his dreams, imaginary and yet so real, that was set in the midst of that great city in a great square. And then suddenly, strangely, of their own volition, it seemed, his fingers, where they had been hesitant before, began now to work with a sure swiftness.

      His eyes were drinking in the contour of Marie-Louise's face in a rapt, eager, subconscious way. There was something deeper there than the mere prettiness of feature, something that was impressing itself in an absorbing, insistent way upon him. Her face made him think of the face of that statue—there was a hint of masculinity that brought with it no coarseness, nor robbed it of its sweetness or its charm, but like that massive face of bronze that towered high, that people with uplifted heads stood and gazed upon, that none passed by without a pause, stamped it with calm fearlessness; and courage and resolve outshone all else and alone was dominant there.

      Marie-Louise sat up suddenly from the ground and turned toward him, her brows gathered in a pretty, puzzled way.

      "Why do you look at me like that, Jean?" she demanded abruptly. "And what are you doing there? It is not the doll you promised to make for little Ninon Lachance—it is much too big." She leaned forward. "What are you making?"

      "Ma foi!" Jean muttered, with a little start—and stared at the lump of clay. "I—I do not know."

      "Well, then," said Marie-Louise gravely, "don't do any more. I want to talk to you, Jean."

      "How, not do any more!" protested Jean whimsically. "Was it not you who said, 'We will go to the creek this afternoon and make poupées'? And look"—he jerked his hand toward a large basket on the ground beside him—"to do that I shall perhaps not keep my promise to meet the Lucille when she comes in and bring a panier of fish to Jacques Fregeau at the Bas Rhône. And now you say, 'Don't do any more'!"

      "Yes; I know," admitted Marie-Louise. "But I want to talk to you. Listen, Jean. To-morrow Mother Fregeau must go back to the Bas Rhône. She has been too long away in her kindness now. You know how she came to me the next morning after Uncle Gaston died, and put her arms around me and has stayed ever since."

      Jean shifted the lump of clay a little away from Marie-Louise, but his fingers still worked on.

      "She has a heart of gold," asserted Jean. "Who should know any better than I, who have lived with her all these years?"

      Marie-Louise's eyes travelled slowly in a half tender, half pensive way over Jean. His coat was off; the loose shirt was open at the neck displaying the muscular shoulders, and the sleeves were rolled up over the brown, tanned arms; the powerful hands, powerful for all their long, slim, tapering fingers, worked on and on; the black hair clustered truantly, as it always did, over the broad, high forehead. She had known Jean all her life, as many years as she could remember, and her love for him was very deep. It had come to seem her life, that love; and each night in her prayers she had asked the bon Dieu to bless and take care of Jean, and to make her a good wife to him when that time should come. It was so great, that love, that sometimes it frightened her—somehow it was frightening her now, for there was a side to Jean that, well as she knew him, she felt intuitively she had never been able to understand.

      She spoke abruptly again, a little absently.

      "I do not know yet what I am to do. There is the house, and Father Anton says I must not live there alone."

      "But, no!" agreed Jean. "Of course not! That is what I say, too. It is all the more reason why we should not wait any longer, you and I, Marie-Louise."

      A tinge of colour crept shyly into Marie-Louise's face, as she shook her head.

      "No; we must wait, Jean. It is too soon after—after poor Uncle Gaston."

      "But it was Gaston's wish, that," persisted Jean gently. "Have I not told you what he said, petite?"

      Again Marie-Louise shook her head.

      "But one is sad for all that," she answered. "And to go to the church, Jean, when one is sad, when one should go so happy! Oh, I want to be happy then, Jean. I do not want to think of anything that day but only you, Jean—and sing, and there must be sunshine and fête. But now, for a little while, it is Uncle Gaston. You do not think that wrong?"

      "No," said Jean slowly, "it is not wrong, and I understand; but then, too, Gaston would understand, for it was his wish."

      Marie-Louise bent forward with a strange little impulsive movement.

      "That is twice you have said that, Jean," she said. "I—I almost wish Uncle Gaston had not said what he did to you that night. Jean, it—it is not what he said, nor what you said to him. That must not make any difference. Never, never, Jean! One does not marry for that—it is only if there is love."

      "Mais, 'cré nom!" exclaimed Jean, suddenly setting aside his clay and catching Marie-Louise's face between his hands. "Why do you talk like that? What queer fancies are in that little head? Now, tell me"—he kissed her lips, while the blood rushed crimson to her cheeks—"tell me, is that not answer enough? And have we not loved each other long before that night, and does not all Bernay-sur-Mer know that it will dance at the noces?"

      "Yes," whispered Marie-Louise, a little breathlessly.

      "Ah, then," said Jean tenderly, "you must not talk like that. What, Marie-Louise, if I should say to myself, 'now perhaps Marie-Louise has not loved me all these years, and—'"

      She drew hurriedly away.

      "Don't, Jean!" she said quickly. "It hurts, that! I love you so much that sometimes I am afraid. And to-day I am afraid. I do not know why. And sometimes it is so different. That night on the reef when I thought that soon the rocks would be covered and that there was no help for Uncle Gaston and myself, and that no one could come to us even if we were seen, I saw your lantern and the bon