Genre Romance. Page - 18

miled slowly, showing a row of very white, strong teeth.

"I know, auntie," she said. "No; I shouldn't think Laurie'll mind much. Perhaps he'll go back to town in the morning, too."

"No, my dear, he's staying till Thursday."

* * * * *

There fell again one of those pleasant silences that are possible in the country. Outside the garden, with the meadows beyond the village road, lay in that sweet September hush of sunlight and mellow color that seemed to embalm the house in peace. From the farm beyond the stable-yard came the crowing of a cock, followed by the liquid chuckle of a pigeon perched somewhere overhead among the twisted chimneys. And within this room all was equally at peace. The sunshine lay on table and polished floor, barred by the mullions of the windows, and stained here and there by the little Flemish emblems and coats that hung across the glass; while those two figures, so perfectly in place in their serenity and leisure, sat before the open fire-place and contemplate

self as if I was cruel in going to be married and not helping you. It ain't kind. Now, is it kind, Poor Thing?"

"Sally! Hear me, my dear. My entreaty is for no help in the future. It applies to what is past. It is only to be told in two words."

"There! This is worse and worse," cries Sally, "supposing that I understand what two words you mean."

"You do understand. What are the names they have given my poor baby? I ask no more than that. I have read of the customs of the place. He has been christened in the chapel, and registered by some surname in the book. He was received last Monday evening. What have they called him?"

Down upon her knees in the foul mud of the by-way into which they have strayed--an empty street without a thoroughfare giving on the dark gardens of the Hospital--the lady would drop in her passionate entreaty, but that Sally prevents her.

"Don't! Don't! You make me feel as if I was setting myself up to be good. Let me look in your pretty face again. Put yo

ll the knowledge of good and evil that God had perhaps given her, but that no one had ever thought of developing. I shall always remember her, as she passed along the boulevards almost every day at the same hour, accompanied by her mother as assiduously as a real mother might have accompanied her daughter. I was very young then, and ready to accept for myself the easy morality of the age. I remember, however, the contempt and disgust which awoke in me at the sight of this scandalous chaperoning. Her face, too, was inexpressibly virginal in its expression of innocence and of melancholy suffering. She was like a figure of Resignation.

One day the girl's face was transfigured. In the midst of all the debauches mapped out by her mother, it seemed to her as if God had left over for her one happiness. And why indeed should God, who had made her without strength, have left her without consolation, under the sorrowful burden of her life? One day, then, she realized that she was to have a child, and all that re

new trail had not been noticed. It ran deep and well marked through the heavy brush of a gully to a place where the brush commenced to thin, and there it branched into a dozen dim trails that joined and blended with the old, well worn cattle paths of the hillside.

"Somebody's might foxy," observed the man; "but I don't see what it's all about. The days of cattle runners and bandits are over."

"Just imagine!" exclaimed the girl. "A real mystery in our lazy, old hills!"

The man rode in silence and in thought. A herd of pure-bred Herefords, whose value would have ransomed half the crowned heads remaining in Europe, grazed in the several pastures that ran far back into those hills; and back there somewhere that trail led, but for what purpose? No good purpose, he was sure, or it had not been so cleverly hidden.

As they came to the trail which they called the Camino Corto, where it commenced at the gate leading from the old goat corral, the man jerked his thumb toward the west along it

gish insect food that I felt the moment degrading.

Kitty was, I felt, being a little too clever over it.

"How is he wounded?" she asked.

The caller traced a pattern on the carpet with her blunt toe.

"I don't know how to put it; he's not exactly wounded. A shell burst--"

"Concussion?" suggested Kitty.

She answered with an odd glibness and humility, as though tendering us a term she had long brooded over without arriving at comprehension, and hoping that our superior intelligences would make something of it:

"Shell-shock." Our faces did not illumine, so she dragged on lamely, "Anyway, he's not well." Again she played with her purse. Her face was visibly damp.

"Not well? Is he dangerously ill?"

"Oh, no." She was too kind to harrow us. "Not dangerously ill."

Kitty brutally permitted a silence to fall. Our caller could not bear it, and broke it in a voice that nervousness had turned to a funny, diffident croak.

"He's in the Queen Mary Hos

rmagnac or red Anjou? This was a Burgundy of whichMonsieur le Marquis thought highly, and this a delicate Lombardywine that His Majesty had oft commended. Or perhaps Monsieur deChatellerault would prefer to taste the last vintage of Bardelys?

And so they plagued him and bewildered him until his choice wasmade; and even then a couple of them held themselves in readinessbehind his chair to forestall his slightest want. Indeed, had hebeen the very King himself, no greater honour could we have shownhim at the Hotel de Bardelys.

But the restraint that his coming had brought with it hung stillupon the company, for Chatellerault was little loved, and hispresence there was much as that of the skull at an Egyptian banquet.

For of all these fair-weather friends that sat about my table -amongst whom there were few that had not felt his power - I fearedthere might be scarcely one would have the grace to dissemble hiscontempt of the fallen favourite. That he was fallen, as much hiswords as what

sh greycalled grisaille, formed the further side of the tiny apartment.

Madame Poulain, turning a key, revealed a large roomy space now fitted upas a cupboard. "It's a way through into our bedroom, monsieur," she saidsmiling. "We could not of course allow our daughter to be far fromourselves."

And Dampier nodded. He knew the ways of French people and sympathised withthose ways.

He stepped up into the cupboard, curious to see if this too had been apowdering closet, and if that were so if the old panelling andornamentation had remained in their original condition.

Thus for a moment was Dampier concealed from those in the room. And duringthat moment there came the sound of footsteps on the staircase, followed bythe sudden appearance on the landing outside the open door of the curiouslittle apartment of two tall figures--a girl in a lace opera cloak, and ayoung man in evening dress.

Nancy Dampier, gazing at them, a little surprised at the abrupt apparition,told herself that they must be

start, he noted it and halted his pony after reaching the level to look about him.

There was no sign of any cattle. But he reflected that perhaps a new range had been opened. Thirteen years is a long time, and many changes could have come during his absence.

He was about to urge his pony on again, when some impulse moved him to turn in the saddle and glance at the hill he had just vacated. At about the spot where he had sat--perhaps two hundred yards distant--he saw a man on a horse, sitting motionless in the saddle, looking at him.

Calumet wheeled his own pony and faced the man. The vari-colored glow from the distant mountains fell full upon the horseman, and with the instinct for attention to detail which had become habitual with Calumet, he noted that the rider was a big man; that he wore a cream-colored Stetson and a scarlet neckerchief. Even at that distance, so clear was the light, Calumet caught a vague impression of his features--his nose, especially, which was big, hawk-like.

Raynold Cobham, and their company rode out on the one side and wastedand exiled the country, as the lord Harcourt had done; and the kingever rode between these battles, and every night they lodged together.

OF THE GREAT ASSEMBLY THAT THE FRENCH KING MADE TO RESIST THE KING OFENGLAND

Thus by the Englishmen was brent, exiled, robbed, wasted and pilledthe good, plentiful country of Normandy. Then the French king sent forthe lord John of Hainault, who came to him with a great number: alsothe king sent for other men of arms, dukes, earls, barons, knights andsquires, and assembled together the greatest number of people that hadbeen seen in France a hundred year before. He sent for men into so farcountries, that it was long or they came together, wherefore the kingof England did what him list in the mean season. The French king heardwell what he did, and sware and said how they should siever returnagain unfought withal, and that such hurts and damages as they haddone should be dearly revenged;