t good end they may be set to serve. Secrecy
means evasion, and evasion means a problem to the moral mind. To the
primitive mind, with its direct yes and no, there is danger of it
becoming a tragical problem ere it is realised that truth is various
and diverse. Perhaps even with that Mary who hid the matter in her
heart--the exquisite tragedy and glory of Christendom--there was a
delicate feeling of guilt, the guilt of the hidden though lofty and
beautiful thing.

If secrecy was guilt, then Charley and Rosalie were bound together by
a bond as strong as death: Rosalie held the key to a series of fateful
days and doings.

In ordinary course, they might have known each other for five years and
not have come to this sensitive and delicate association. With one great
plunge she had sprung into the river of understanding. In the moment
that she had thrust her scarf into his scorched breast, in that little
upper room, the work of years had been done.

As long as he lived, that mark must remain on M'sieu's breast--the red,
smooth scar of a cross! She had seen the sort of shining scar a bad burn
makes, and at thought of it she flushed, trembled, and turned her
head away, as though some one were watching her. Even in the night
she flushed and buried her face in the pillow when the thought flashed
through her mind; though when she had soaked the scarf in oil and
flour and laid it on the angry wound she had not flushed at all, was
determined, quiet, and resourceful.

That incident had made her from a girl into a woman, from a child of the
convent into a child of the world. She no longer thought and felt as she
had done before. What she did think or feel could not easily have been
set down, for her mind was one tremulous confusion of unusual thoughts,
her heart was beset by new feelings, her imagination, suddenly finding
itself, was trying its wings helplessly. The past was full of wonder and
event, the present full of surprises.

There was M'sieu' established already in Louis Trudel's place, having
been granted a lease of the house and shop by the Curte, on the part of
the parish, to which the property had been left; receiving also a gift
of the furniture and of old Margot, who remained where she had been so
many years. She could easily see Charley at work--pale and suffering
still--for the door was generally open in the sweet April weather,
with the birds singing, and the trees bursting into blossom. Her wilful
imagination t