Agapit uttered a confused, smothered exclamation, and, stooping over, seized her firmly by the shoulders, and drew her out from the clinging embrace of Sleeping Water.

"I never saw such a river," said Bidiane, shaking herself like a small wet dog, and avoiding her lover's shocked glance. "It is just like jelly."

"Come up to the house," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"No, no; it would only frighten Rose. She is getting to dislike this river, for people talk so much against it. I will go home."

"Then let me put you on Turenne's back," said Agapit, pointing to his horse as he stood curiously regarding them.

"No, I might fall off--I have had enough frights for to-night," and she shuddered. "I shall run home. I never take cold. _Ma foi!_ but it is good to be out of that slippery mud."

Agapit hurried along beside her. "How did it happen?"

"I was just going to cross the bridge. The river looked so sleepy and quiet, and so like a mirror, that I wondered if I could see my face, if I bent close to it. I stepped on the bank, and it gave way under me, and then I fell in; and to save myself from being sucked down I clung to the bridge, and waited for you to come, for I didn't seem to have strength to drag myself out."

Agapit could not speak for a time. He was struggling with an intense emotion that would have been unintelligible to her if he had expressed it. At last he said, "How did you know that I was here?"

"I saw you," said Bidiane, and she slightly slackened her pace, and glanced at him from the corners of her eyes.

"Through the window?"

"Yes."

"Why did you not come in?"

"I did not wish to do so."

"You are jealous," he exclaimed, and he endeavored to take her hand.

"Let my hand alone,--you flatter yourself."

"You were frightened there in the river, little one," he murmured.

Bidiane paused for an instant, and gazed over her shoulder. "Your old horse is nearly on my heels, and his eyes are like carriage lamps."

"Back!" exclaimed Agapit, to the curious and irrepressible Turenne.

"You say nothing of your election," remarked Bidiane. "Are you glad?"

He drew a rapid breath, and turned his red face towards her again. "My mind is in a whirl, little cousin, and my pulses are going like hammers.

You do not know what it is to sway men by the tongue. When one stands up, and speaks, and the human faces spreading out like a flower-bed change and lighten, or grow gloomy, as one wishes, it is majestic,--it makes a man feel like a deity."

"You will get on in the world," said Bidiane, impulsively. "You have it in you."

"But must I go alone?" he said, pa.s.sionately. "Bidiane, you, though so much younger, you understand me. I have been happy to-day, yes, happy, for amid all the excitement, the changing faces, the buzzing of talk in my ears, there has been one little countenance before me--"

"Yes,--Rose's."

"You treat me as if I were a boy," he said, vehemently, "on this day when I was so important. Why are you so flippant?"

"Don't be angry with me," she said, coaxingly.

"Angry," he muttered, in a shocked voice. "I am not angry. How could I be with you, whom I love so much?"

"Easily," she murmured. "I scarcely wished to see you to-day. I almost dreaded to hear you had been elected, for I thought you would be angry because we--because Claudine, and my aunt, and I, talked against Mr.

Greening, and drove him out, and suggested you. I know men don't like to be helped by women."

"Your efforts counted," he said, patiently, and yet with desperate haste, for they were rapidly nearing the inn, "yet you know Sleeping Water is a small district, and the county is large. There was in some places great dissatisfaction with Mr. Greening, but don't talk of him.

My dear one, will you--"

"You don't know the worst thing about me," she interrupted, in a low voice. "There was one dreadful thing I did."

He checked an oncoming flow of endearing words, and stared at her. "You have been flirting," he said at last.

"Worse than that," she said, shamefacedly. "If you say first that you will forgive me, I will tell you about it--no, I will not either. I shall just tell you, and if you don't want to overlook it you need not--why, what is the matter with you?"

"Nothing, nothing," he muttered, with an averted face. He had suddenly become as rigid as marble, and Bidiane surveyed him in bewildered surprise, until a sudden illumination broke over her, when she lapsed into nervous amus.e.m.e.nt.

"You have always been very kind to me, very interested," she said, with the utmost gentleness and sweetness; "surely you are not going to lose patience now."

"Go on," said Agapit, stonily, "tell me about this--this escapade."

"How bad a thing would I have to do for you not to forgive me?" she asked.

"Bidiane--_de grace_, continue."

"But I want to know," she said, persistently. "Suppose I had just murdered some one, and had not a friend in the world, would you stand by me?"

He would not reply to her, and she went on, "I know you think a good deal of your honor, but the world is full of bad people. Some one ought to love them--if you were going to be hanged to-morrow I would visit you in your cell. I would take you flowers and something to eat, and I might even go to the scaffold with you."

Agapit in dumb anguish, and scarcely knowing what he did, s.n.a.t.c.hed his hat from his head and swung it to and fro.

"You had better put on your hat," she said, amiably, "you will take cold."

Agapit, suddenly seized her by the shoulders and, holding her firmly, but gently, stared into her eyes that were full of tears. "Ah! you amuse yourself by torturing me," he said, with a groan of relief. "You are as pure as a snowdrop, you have not been flirting."

"Oh, I am so angry with you for being hateful and suspicious," she said, proudly, and with a heaving bosom, and she averted her face to brush the tears from her eyes. "You know I don't care a rap for any man in the world but Mr. Nimmo, except the tiniest atom of respect for you."

Agapit at once broke into abject apologies, and being graciously forgiven, he humbly entreated her to continue the recital of her misdeeds.

"It was when we began to make _bombance_" she said, in a lofty tone.

"Every one a.s.sured us that we must have rum, but Claudine would not let us take her money for it, because her husband drank until he made his head queer and had that dreadful fall. She said to buy anything with her money but liquor. We didn't know what to do until one day a man came in and told us that if we wanted money we should go to the rich members of our party. He mentioned Mr. Smith, in Weymouth, and I said, 'Well, I will go and ask him for money to buy something for these wicked men to stop them from voting for a wretch who calls us names.' 'But you must not say that,' replied the man, and he laughed. 'You must go to Mr.

Smith and say, "There is an election coming on, and there will be great doings at the Sleeping Water Inn, and it ought to be painted."' 'But it has just been painted,' I said. 'Never mind,' he told me, 'it must be painted.' Then I understood, and Claudine and I went to Mr. Smith, and asked him if it would not be a wise thing to paint the inn, and he laughed and said, 'By all manner of means, yes,--give it a good thick coat and make it stick on well,' and he gave us some bills."

"How many?" asked Agapit, for Bidiane's voice was sinking lower and lower.

"One hundred dollars,--just what Claudine had."