Maryland independent. [volume] (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1874-current, 1930-11-21

frontier of that far province that
Henri had found and married her.
Tonteur was aware, possibly even
more than Henri Bulaln, that Cath
crimes alteration of her men folk and
Of everything that went with them,
even to the primitive dlscomforts of
the wilderness life which had claimed
her, was built up against back
ground of something more than merely
being the mate Of a man and the
mother of son. Culture and learn
ing and broadness of vision and
thought, nurtured in her first by
gentle mother, and, after her death.
developed and strengthened by
schoolmaster father, had given to her
a medium of priceless value by which
to measure happiness.
Because of her adroitness in fash
ioning beauty and perfection out of
simple and inexpensive things, and
also because she was of the spawn
of the despicable English, Madame
Henriette Tonteur had come to re-
gard her with much the same aversion
and dislike with which she would have
looked upon a cup of poison.
Tonteur knew this and cursed in his
honest heart at the woman who was
his wife. with her coldly patrician
face, her powdered hair. her jewels
and gowns and her platonic ignorance
of love-and then thanked his God
that little Marie Antoinette was grow
ing less like her with each day that
passed over her pretty head. For
Marie Antoinette was tempestuous, like
himself, patrician without doubt,
but with warm and ready passion to
Offset that curse, and for this, too, he
blessed the fortune which in one way
had been so kind to him.
Behind her husband and boy Cath.
crime had been thinking of TonteuT
and of his wife. the aristocratic Hen
riette. For a long time she had known
of Madame Tonteur's hatred, but II
was not until this afternoon that the
other discovery had come to her. for.
in spite of his most heroic efforts,
Tonteur had betrayed himself when
suddenly she had caught him looking
at her. Catherine had seen the shad-
ow of his secret-like ghost swiftly
disappearing. Up over the hill she had
added many twos and twOs together.
until, in the sure way of woman.
she knew what TOnteur was thinking
and did not fear or distrust him for it,
And Madame Tonteur hated her
Disbelieving whatever good might have
been said of Catherine. she hated her
first as a deadly enemy of her race.
and hated her then because she dared
hold her head as proudly as baron's
lady, and hated her last of all because.
nothing more than the wife of worth
less backwoodsman like Henri Bulain,
she was impudent enough to be the
prettiest woman anywhere near the
Tonteur seigneurie.
And, so far as 1t was in her power,
she had planted and nurtured this
hatred to growth in the heart and
mind of her proud daughter, Marie
Antoinette, until Tonteur, blind to the
feline subtlety of a woman in such
matters, wondered why IT was that his
girl. whom he worshiped above all
other things on earth. should so openly
! display unfriendliness and dislike
whenever Jeems came to Tonteur
manor.
OF this same thing Jeems had been
ha Oh Of HI
father and mother. His mind, at pres
ent. was busy with the stress of fight
ing. Mentally. and physically in a
way, he was experiencing the thrill Of
sangulnary battle. Half a dozen times
since beginning the long climb over
Tonteur's hill he had chOked and
beaten Paul Tache, and in every mo-
ment of these mental triumphs Marie
| Antoinette looked on with wonder and
horror as he pitiessly assaulted and
vanquished her handsome young
cousin from the Dig city of Quebec.
Even In the heat of these vivid
imaginings, Jeems was sick at heart,
| and it was the shadow of this sick
ness which Odd caught when he
looked up into his masters eyes.
From the day Jeems had first seen
Marie Antoinette, when she was seven
and he was nine, he had dreamed of
her, and had anticipated through
weeks and months the journeys which
his father permitted him to make with
him to Tonteur manor. On these rare
alteration at the little princess of the
seigneurie and had made her presents
| of flowers and feathers and nuts and
maple sugar and queer treasures
which ne brought from the forests.
These tokens of his homage had never
served to build bridge across the
| abyss which lay between them.
1