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"I know. I didn't send him, nor did my mother," I told her.

She smiled coolly. "I have heard how you Cajuns can be stubborn and foolhardy. Perhaps it's a consequence of having to live in this godforsaken part of Louisiana," she commented.

"This is hardly the godforsaken part of Louisiana, madame. If God is anywhere, He is here. There is more beauty, more natural goodness, than there is in the city," I told her proudly.

"Oh? You've been to New Orleans?"

"No, but . . . I know," I said.

She smiled again.

"What is it you want from me?" I demanded. "Or did you come here just to gloat or threaten me? I didn't plan for what happened to happen, but it did."

"And you're not sorry, is that it?" she said, her eyes turning to glass.

"I don't know," I replied.

She softened, her eyebrows rising. "Oh?"

"I have brought a lot of pain to my family . . . to my mother," I said.

She stopped smoking and quickly crushed her cigarette in the ashtray. "I will come right to the point, Gabriel--if I may call you Gabriel?" I nodded. "I would like Pierre to have his child. It's something that his father wants very much, too. I suppose Pierre told you that we have been unable to have children. The failure to have a family has made my marriage something of a failure as well.

"My father-in-law told me of your father's demands and his willingness to permit you to give up the baby."

"And you would want this, too?" I asked, not hiding my surprise.

"I would like to see my father-in-law happy and . . . I'd like to have a child in the house. We could have adopted, of course,

but he or she wouldn't have been a Dumas. You carry a Dumas and that means a great deal to my father-in-law.

"I have come here because your father has now informed my father-in-law that you refused to give up the baby, no matter how much money was offered. I hope to change your mind, but if you do, it will have to be immediately, for I am planning to take an extended holiday, during which time I will . . ."

"Pretend to be pregnant," I said. "I understand, only all too well."

"Oui. That is my plan. So you see, if this is to happen, there can't be any more delays. It will either happen or it won't now. Soon it will be obviously impossible for us, for me, to take the baby as my own."

"But no matter what you do, it won't be your baby, madame," I reminded her.

"It will be Pierre's child, and therefore, it will be mine.

We are married; we are as one, whether Pierre recognizes that fact or not. I have come to assure you I will accept the child as my own and I will raise him or her to be a Dumas. The child will have all the benefits, the education, the finest things, and will be with the father," Madame Dumas added pointedly.

I started to shake my head. "I can't give up my child. . . ."

"Why not? You think by holding on to the child, you will somehow hold on to Pierre?" she asked, her smile widening. "I assure you, Gabriel, Pierre is out of your life. He is a rich Creole gentleman. He's had flings before and I've overlooked them before, but this time . . . this time he's gone too far and he knows he has.

"Look at the alternative, Gabriel," she said, sitting back. She nodded toward the shack. "Your life will become more of a struggle. Your parents will have to work harder and harder. You will feel more and more guilty. It will affect the way you treat the child. Oui, "she said before I could protest, "it will. You won't even recognize it and maybe not even think it, but it will nevertheless.

"And if you should meet another man, someone who will want to marry you even with a child, you will be afraid that he will come to resent the child, that he will look at the child and think this is the child of another man, another man she loved, and not my child, and here I am working to support this child. Then there will be arguments and resentments.

"And if you don't ever find another man, what do you have to offer this child? What hope for the future? How will she or he attend school, for example? Will the other children in the bayou accept this fatherless child or will he or she always feel inferior? You know what happens then, Gabriel? The child begins to resent you for bringing her or him into such a circumstance.

"Are you prepared for all this? Why should you be?" she added before I could even think of a response. "Why should you have to worry and think about ways to avoid this hardship? I am the first to admit my husband abused you."

"No," I said. "He didn't do anything that I didn't want him to do."

"I see?' She smirked and sat back again. "Then you are happy?"