Description

"You will reach Fourche by nightfall," said Father Maurice to Germain. "The roads are good, and you will take the mare. A suitor looks better when he comes well mounted. You must put on your new clothes and carry a nice present of game to Father Leonard. You will talk with him, then pass all of Sunday with his daughter, and then Monday morning come back with a yes or no about the marriage to this widow." "Very well," answered Germain calmly, although within himself he felt no calm. Germain had always lived soberly. Married at twenty, he had loved but one woman in his life -- and after her death, impulsive and gay as his nature was, he had never played nor trifled with another. He had borne a real sorrow faithfully in his heart, and it was not without misgiving nor without sadness that he yielded to his father-in-law. Nevertheless, he was sad. Few days went by when he did not cry in secret, for his late wife; and although loneliness began to weigh on him, he was more afraid of entering into a new marriage than desirous of finding a support in his sorrow. He had a vague idea that love might have consoled him by coming to him of a sudden -- for this is the only way love can console. We never find it when we seek it, he told himself; it comes over us unawares. But this cold-blooded scheme of marriage that Father Maurice had opened to him . . . this unknown woman he was to take for his bride . . . perhaps his life was not his own to leave open to the vagaries of chance. Yet Germaine's path to Fourche is not the one Father Maurice expects it to be -- and chance, misfortune, and bedevilments will have ample chance to influence Germain's future.