smallest white line marked where its waters caressed the shore.

Nature slumbered in the heat and was silent, and Sabine Howard, the
chatelaine of this quaint chateau, stood looking out of the deep windows
in her great sitting-room. It was a wonderful room. She had collected
dark panelling and tapestry to hide the grim stone walls, and had
managed to buy a splendidly carved and painted roof, while her sense of
color had run riot in beautiful silks for curtains. It was a remarkable
achievement for one so young, and who had begun so ignorantly. Her
mother's family had been decently enough bred, and her maternal
grandfather had been a fair artist, and that remarkable American
adaptability which she had inherited from her father had helped her in
many ways. Her sitting-room at Heronac was, of course, not perfect; and
to the trained eye of Henry Fordyce would present many anomalies; but
no one could deny that it was a charming apartment, or that it was a
glowing frame of rich tints for her youthful freshness.

She had really studied in these years of her residence there, and each
month put something worth having into the storehouse of her intelligent
mind. She was as immeasurably removed from the Sabine Delburg of convent
days as light from darkness, and her companion had often been Monsieur
le Cure, an enchanting Jesuit priest, who had the care of the souls of
Heronac village. A great cynic, a pure Christian and a man of parts--a
distant connection of the original family--Gaston d'Heronac had known
the world in his day; and after much sorrow had found a hermitage in his
own village--a consolation in the company of this half-French,
half-American heiress, who had incorporated herself with the soil. He
was now seventy years of age and always a gentleman, with few of the
tiresome habits of the old.

What joy he had found in opening the mind of his young Dame d'Heronac!

It was frankly admitted that there were to be no discussions upon
religion.

"I am a pagan, _cher pere_," Sabine had said, almost immediately, "leave
me!--and let me enjoy your sweet church and your fisherfolks' faith. I
will come there every Sunday and say my prayers--_mes prieres a
moi_--and then we can discuss philosophy afterwards or--what you will."

And the priest had replied:

"Religion is not of dogma. The paganism of Dame Sabine is as good in the
sight of le bon Dieu as the belief of Jean Rivee, who knows that his
boat was guided into the harb