Explaining as best he could without previous research, Chester had turned again to Mlle. Yvonne to let her finish telling--inspire'd by an incoming course of the menu--of those happy childhood days when she and her sister and the unfortunate gentleman from whom they had bought Aline's ma.n.u.script went crayfishing in Elysian Fields street ca.n.a.l, always taking the dolls along, "so not to leave them lonesome"; how the dolls had visibly enjoyed the capture of each crayfish; and how she and Corinne and the dolls would delight in the same sport to-day, but, alas! "that can-al was fil' op! and tha'z another thing calculate' to projuce hard feeling."

Through such riddles and reminiscences and his replies thereto persistently ran Chester's uneasy question to himself: Why had Aline told him that story of unnamable trouble which had goaded her to seek the cloister? Why if not to warn him away from a sentiment which was growing in him like a balloon and straining his heart-strings to hold it to its proper moorings?

Now the two cars let out their pa.s.sengers at the De l'Isle gates and at the door of the Castanados. Madame of the latter name, with her spouse heaving under one arm and Chester under the other, while Mme. Alexandre pushed behind, was lifted to her parlor. Returning to the street, Chester found the motors gone, MM. De l'Isle and Beloiseau gone with them, and only the two Dubrocas, the three Chapdelaines, and Cupid awaiting him.

And now, with Cupid leading, and sleeping as he led, and with a Dubroca beside each aunt, and Aline and Chester following, this remnant of the company approached the Conti Street corner, on the way to the Chapdelaine home. At the turn----

"Mademoiselle," Chester asked in a desperation too much like hers before the arch-bishop, "do you notice that, as the old hymn says, we are treading where the saints have trod? _Your_ saints?"

"My--ah, yes, 'tis true. 'Tis here _grand'mere_----

"Turned that corner in her life where your _grandpere_ first saw her.

Al'--Aline."

"Mr. Chester?"

"I want this corner, from the day I first saw you turn it, to be all that to you and me. Shall it not?"

She said nothing. Priceless moments glided by, each a dancing ghost.

Just there ahead in the dark was Bourbon Street, and a short way down among its huddled shadows were her board fence and batten gate. It was senseless to have taken this chance on so poor a margin of time, but what's done's done! "Oh, Aline Chapdelaine, say it shall be! Say it, Aline, say it!"

"Mr. Chester, it is impossible! Impossible!"

"It is not! It's the only right thing! It shall be, Aline, it shall be!"

"No, Mr. Chester, 'tis impossible. You must not ask me why, but 'tis impossible!"

"It isn't! Aline, and I ask no why. I see the trouble. It's your aunts. Why, I'll take them with you, _of course_! I'll take them into my care and love as you have them in yours, and keep them there while they and I live. I can do it, I've got the wherewithal! Things have happened to me fast since I first saw you turn that corner behind us.

I've inherited property, and only yesterday I was taken into one of the best law firms in the city. I'll prove all that to you and your aunts to-morrow. Aline, unspeakable treasure, you shall not live the buried-alive life in which you are trying to believe yourself rightly placed and happy, my saint! My--adored--_saint_!"

"Yes, I must. What you ask is impossible."

x.x.xIX

Long after midnight Chester had not returned to his room. He could not tolerate the confinement even of the narrow streets round about it.

Far out Esplanade Avenue, uncompanioned, he was walking mile after mile beside a belt line of trolley-cars, or more than one, while at home, in Bourbon Street, Cupid slept.

But now the child awoke, startled. Four small feet were on one of his arms, and Marie Madeleine was purring, at the top of her purr, in his ear. Drowsily he crowded her away. Purring on, she slowly walked across his stomach and dropped to the floor. But soon she leaped up again to that sensitive region and purred into his nose, not at all as if to claim attention, but as though lost in thought. When he pushed her aside she dropped again to the floor, with such a quadruple thump that he looked after her, and as she loitered across his view with tail as straight up as Cleopatra's Needle, he observed just beyond her a condition of affairs that appalled him.

Cold from his small fingers and toes to his ample heart, he rose, stole into the next room, and stood by the bed where lay Mlles. Corinne and Yvonne as they had lain every night since their earliest childhood.

"Ah! oh! h'nn!" Mlle. Corinne sprang to an elbow, nervously whispering: "What is it?"

"My back do'," he murmured, "stan'in' opem."

"Oh, little boy, no, it cannot be! I bolt' it laz' evening when you was praying. You know?"

"Ya.s.s'm, but it opem now; Marie Madeleine dess gone out thu it."

Mlle. Yvonne sprang up dishevelled beside her dishevelled sister: "_Mon dieu_! where is Aline?"

Colder than ever in hands and feet, the wee grandson of the intrepid Sidney responded: "Stay still tell I go see."

"Yes!" whispered Mlle. Corinne, slipping to the floor and tenderly pushing him, "go! safest for everybody! And if you see a burglar _don'

threaten him_!"

"No'm, I won't."

"No, but juz' run quick out the back door and fron' gate and holla 'fire'! Go!"

At the crack of the door she listened after him while her sister crowded close, whispering: "Ah, _pauvre_ Aline, always wise! Like us, silent! And tha'z after all the bravezt!"

In a moment Cupid was back, less frozen yet trembling: "She am' dah.

Seem' like 'tis her leave de do' opem."

"Her clothes--they are gone?"

"No'm, all dah 'cep' de cloak she tuck on de machine. Reckon she out in de honey-sucker bower whah _dey_ sot together Sunday evenin'.

Reckon Marie Madeleine gone dah. I'll go see."

"Ah, fearlezz boy, yes! Make quick!"

This time both women pushed, single file, all the way to the garden door. There they strained their sight down the path, beyond him, but the bower was quite dark. "Corinne, _chere_, ought not one of us to go, yo'seff?--to spare her feelings--from that li'l' negro? You don'

think one of us ought to go, yo'seff?"

"No, to sen' him, that is to spare those feel'--listen! . . . Ah, Yvonne, _grace au ciel_, she's there!"

They frankly wept. "Thangg the good G.o.d!"

"Yvonne, _chere_, you know, we are the cause of this. 'Tis biccause juz'--you and me. And she's gone yonder juz' for one thing; to be as far from her _miserie_ as she can."

"Yes, _chere_, I billieve that. I think even, she muz' not see us when she's riturning." No footfall sounded, but the cat came in, tail up, purring. Back in their chamber, with wet cheeks on its unlatched door, the sisters listened.

"I know what we muz' do, Yvonne, as soon as to-morrow. Tha'z strange I never saw that biffo'!"

Cupid came and was let in. "She was al-lone, of co'se?" the pair asked from the edge of their bed.

"Oh, ya.s.s'm, o' co'se; in a manneh, ya.s.s'm."

"_Mon dieu_! li'l boy. In a manner? But how in a manner? Al-lone is al-lone! What she was doing?"

"Is I got to tell dat?"

"Ah, '_t.i.t garcon_! Have you not got to tell it?"