The Clerk of the Court shook his head and began. "She is alive. Madame
Poucette's sister saw her by chance. Zoe was on her way up the
Saskatchewan River to the Peace River country with her husband. Her
husband's health was bad. He had to leave the stage in the United States
where he had gone after Winnipeg. The doctors said he must live the
open-air life. He and Zoe were going north, to take a farm somewhere."
"Somewhere! Somewhere!" murmured Jean Jacques. "The farther away from
Jean Jacques the better--that is what she thinks."
"No, you are wrong, my friend," rejoined M. Fille. "She said to Madame
Poucette's sister"--he held up the letter--"that when they had proved
they could live without anybody's help they would come back to see you.
Zoe thought that, having taken her life in her own hands, she ought to
justify herself before she asked your forgiveness and a place at your
table. She felt that you could only love her and be glad of her, if her
man was independent of you. It is a proud and sensitive soul--but there
it is!"
"It is romance, it is quixotism--ah, heart of God, what quixotism!"
exclaimed Jean Jacques.
"She gets her romance and quixotism from Jean Jacques Barbille," retorted
the Clerk of the Court. "She does more feeling than thinking--like you."
Jean Jacques' heart was bleeding, but he drew himself up proudly, and
caught his hand away from the warm palm of Poucette's widow.
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