Chapter 13

A STRANGE MEETING.

Three months afterwards, Frank was planting his tomatoes in his greenhouses. He had two span-roofs, each one hundred and forty feet long by forty feet wide.

He had sold the workshop which was situated a few yards to the north of the house, and had thus been enabled to build larger houses than he at first intended.

He heard vague rumours about his step-mother going to marry again. If the truth must be said, Frank felt delighted at the prospect of getting rid of her. He had never cared for her much, and, recently, the gap that had always existed between them had been considerably enlarged.

He had been out on business and had arrived rather late in the evening, at which Mrs. Mathers was terribly displeased. "I am not going to sit up all night waiting for you," she said, and then she added in a most sarcastic tone of voice: "Perhaps you have been at the cemetery."

Frank was moved to the quick. He was of a rather passionate temper and he felt nothing but contempt for the person who had made this remark. "I have not been," he said hotly, "I have been about my business."

"I thought that perhaps you had been crying there," she continued with the same irritating smile on her features.

Frank answered: "I might have done worse."

"Who would think that of a man of twenty-one," she said. "Of course, you do not care for your poor father; your mother gets all the tears."

Frank quite forgot himself. He looked at her defiantly and said in a low tone half fearing and yet wishing to be heard: "You are a Jezabel," then turned round and left the room.

When he came to think over the last words which he had used towards his step-mother, he felt ashamed of himself. He felt he had not behaved as a man, much less as a Christian. He had gone much too far; he owed her respect.

He thought of going straight to her, and of asking her pardon, but his pride prevented him from taking this wise step. Only for a minute, however; he soon overcame it and resolutely re-entered the room where Mrs. Mathers was.

"I was very rude to you," he began, "I was rather excited, and----"

Without saying a word Mrs. Mathers left the room and, slamming the door after her, proceeded upstairs.

Frank felt relieved. He had attempted a reconciliation. She had refused. He felt a sense of duty done.

We may add that Mrs. Mathers pouted for more than a week.

The second anniversary of his father's death having arrived, Frank, profiting by his step-mother's absence, took a small bunch of sweet scented flowers and proceeded towards the Foulon Cemetery, where his parents were buried.

As he was about to open the gate, he thought he saw the form of a lady which he knew, coming down the road after him. He arrested his steps. The young lady stopped likewise, as if to examine the cottage situated on her left, and, in doing so, she turned her back towards Frank.

He did not stay there long, but proceeded up the gravel walk towards the grave, but as he advanced, he thought no more of his mission. "Where have I seen that face?" he thought, "it seems familiar to me."

He was now beside the grave, he placed the flowers near the tombstone, but his thoughts were not with the dead, they were with the living.

All at once, it flashed upon him, he remembered that person. That form, that face, belonged to Adele Rougeant.

He hastily left the graveyard and almost ran down the walk.

One of the two persons who were standing near the gate said: "That man has seen a ghost."

Frank smiled as he overheard the remark, and, thinking that the young lady had proceeded past the gate, he went in that direction.

He walked for a quarter of an hour, but neither saw her nor anyone resembling her. At last, he gave up the chase in despair. "I must have construed wrongly," he said to himself, "perhaps the person who was standing near the entrance to the cemetery was right, it was her ghost." He mournfully retraced his steps.

It was really Adele Rougeant that he had seen. She was returning from town, when, instead of going straight home by St. Martin's mill, she went up the Grange, took a peep at her former home, then proceeded by the Rocquettes down the Rohais. Why; the lady readers will easily guess.

She espied Frank, just as he was turning down Foulon Vale.

He was so intent on his mission that he did not notice her.

As soon as she saw his eager look and the bunch of flowers which he carried in his hands, a feeling of exasperating jealousy seized her. Where was he going with those flowers? "Alas!" she thought bitterly, "he has a rendezvous with some pretty lass. I will follow him and ascertain, if possible, the truth."

She walked after him, and when he turned round to look at her, she hastily looked the other way. Fearing lest he might recognise her, she retraced her steps and continued her journey homewards down the Rohais, muttering: "A fine place for a rendezvous."

Something within her tried to reason: "He is nothing to you, you have no claims upon him." But what of her future, what of her projected plans, her ideas, her sweet dreams; they were mown down in this huge and single sweep. Life seemed very dark. Up to this, hope had kept her radiant and cheerful, and now, hope was gone, and in its stead, there was a blank.

Arrived home, she fetched her violin and poured forth all her feelings.

She commenced in a plaintive tone, then this changed to reproach, and the conclusion was a wail of despair.

Again she tried to rouse herself; again she tried to reason. "Why am I so concerned about him?" she asked herself. "I must put these foolish thoughts aside."

But love denied what reason would dictate, and she found herself continually sighing.

Meanwhile, Tom continued his visits from time to time, and she received him with as much coldness as she dared.

But when she came to think that Frank was an acquaintance to be forgotten, she slightly changed her manner towards her cousin.

Her father was not slow to notice the change. He laughed inly and chuckled: "I knew she would come to love him; but I must not hurry her, she is by nature a slow coach; everything will yet come all right in the end."

The days were lengthening and Tom continued to come as early as he used to do in the depth of winter.

It was now quite daylight when he put in an appearance. One evening he took Adele for a walk round the garden. Poor girl; she did not love him, but she did not like to speak roughly to him. She felt that she was wronging him. She knew that at each meeting his hope increased. Still, what was she to do? She began to persuade herself that he was not so bad as she had imagined. He was now a reformed man; her father had told her so, and she could see it. If the passion for drink which was still probably strong within him should return! She paused, mused and said with a sigh: "Alas! I do not feel that I love him."

Still; she hardly knew if in the end she would accept him. He would be so deeply grieved if she refused, and then, if she accepted him, her father would perhaps become once more what he was when she was quite a child. She remembered how he used to take her on his knee, and call her his dear little girl.

She went on thinking: "How many people marry without what is generally called love? Certainly, the greater portion. The French have what they call _marriages de raison_, and they seem to agree as well as others."

Poor Adele. How many have reasoned thus, how many are daily giving themselves away in marriage to men for whom they feel nought but friendship; how many give their hand to one, while their heart yearns for another.