The Landloper Part 65

"_La belle_ ma'm'selle--ba gar! you have to be hit with brick bang--dat fine, pretty lady--she what tell me the good word to say to you about the bad folks--you must know she leeve now in the good woman's house."

Now it was Bristol's turn to grasp Etienne's arm. He shook the old man.

"Miss Kilgour--here? Speak up! Don't be so slow!"

"I have speak up. Odderwise you go off and be a big fool some more,"

retorted the rack-tender, boldly. "She's in there. She come here to live because somet'ing has made her very poor--and very sad. And her modder she cry all the time. And _la belle_ ma'm'selle she come to the big tree and she ask me many things--"

While the old man chattered Bristol was yanking impatiently at the catch of the gate. He could not find the latch in the dark and so he kicked off a few more pickets from Mother Maillet's much-abused fence. He crawled through and b.u.mped against old Etienne, thrusting him from the path, checking the flow of information.

The young man leaped up the steps, to the plain dismay of the little boy, and beat upon the door.

"It is I, Kate!" he called. "I have come back."

When she opened the door--half timorous, half eager, wholly beside herself--he took her in his arms and kissed her, paying no heed to the goggling eyes of childhood or the averted gaze of old age.

"But you left no word for me. Did you believe me when I said I would not come back?"

"I knew you would come back," she sobbed. "So I came here. I knew you would find me here."

Etienne drew near apologetically and picked up the little boy.

"Oh, my own girl, I have so much to tell you!" the lover murmured. "I know you will listen."

"We have so much to tell each other," she said, her hands against his cheeks.

The old man puffed out the lamp and set it to one side and tiptoed away, the child in his arms.

"You ke'p your head under my coat--just so," he commanded the struggling and inquisitive youngster. "Your modder would not like to have you breath in so much night air. We go find her!"

He heard the murmur of eager voices behind him, and then the door of Mother Maillet's house was shut softly--and that left all the world outside.