Father Anton listened. Yes; he had been right. Some one was knocking at the door now.
"Yes--come!" he called, and hurried hospitably across the room, as the door opened--and stopped in stunned amazement--and ran forward again, holding out his arms. "Marie-Louise!" he cried.
Half laughing, half crying, she was in his arms; her own around his neck.
"Oh, Father Anton! Dear, dear Father Anton!" she was repeating over and over again.
"Well, well--but, but--well, well," was all he could say--and kissed her, and pressed her face against his shoulder, and patted her head.
And then he held her off to look at her. It was the same Marie-Louise, with the same bright eyes, even if they were glistening now with tears; the same Marie-Louise, just as though this was Bernay-sur-Mer and not Paris at all, for there was no hat to hide the great black tresses of hair, and there was just the same simple style of loose blouse and ankle skirt that she always wore in the little village, and it might well have been that he and she were there again, there in Bernay-sur-Mer--only on the floor, where she had dropped it as she ran to meet him, was a neatly tied-up little bundle that spoke of the long journey.
"Well, well!" he ejaculated helplessly again, and closed the door, and drew her to a chair and sat down, while she knelt affectionately on the floor at his knees.
"Oh!" she said excitedly. "I did not think Paris could be so big a place. And there was such a crowd in the station, and such a crowd outside, and so many streets, and all the people I spoke to only shook their heads when I asked for Father Anton, and--and then I began to be a little frightened. And then--what do you think? Imagine! Was I not grand? For a franc-fifty a _coccer_ said he would drive me to the address, and--_me voici_! Did I not do well?"
"Splendidly!" he agreed approvingly. "But, Marie-Louise, I do not understand. It is a great surprise. You did not write; you said nothing about coming to Paris. Why did you not tell me you were coming?"
"Of course!" he said, smiling indulgently.
"Well, then," she said demurely, "I was afraid you would say I should not come--and now that I am here you cannot say it."
"Ah," he exclaimed, with mock severity, "that is a serious confession you are making, Marie-Louise! So! And you thought I would not approve, eh? What then has happened in Bernay-sur-Mer?"