"To live it down, Belward?"

"I am going to fight it down."

"Well, there's a difference. You have made a mess of things, and shocked
us all. I needn't say what more. It's done, and now you know what such
things mean to a good woman--and, I hope also, to the father of a good
woman."

The man's voice broke a little. He added:

"They used to come to swords or pistols on such points. We can't settle
it in that way. Anyhow, you have handicapped us to-day." Then, with a
burst of reproach, indignation, and trouble: "Great God, as if you hadn't
been the luckiest man on earth! Delia, the estate, the Commons--all for
a dompteuse!"

"Let us say nothing more," said Gaston, choking down wrath at the
reference to Andree, but sorrowful, and pitying Mr. Gasgoyne. Besides,
the man had a right to rail.

Soon after they parted courteously.

Gaston went to the chateau. As he came up the stone steps he met a
procession--it was the feast-day of the Virgin--of priests and people
and little children, filing up from the village and the sea, singing as
they came. He drew up to the wall, stood upon the stone seat, and took
off his hat while the procession passed. He had met the cure, first
accidentally on the shore, and afterwards in the cure's house, finding