d shook all over with sobs.

Michael's note to Henry was characteristic:

I'm bored, my dear Henry--the picture of your bliss is not
inspiriting--so I am off to Paris and thence home. I hope you'll
think I behaved all right and played the game.

Took your motor to catch train.

Yrs.,
M.A.

CHAPTER XII

The Pere Anselme was uneasy. Very little escaped his observation, and he
saw at tea that his much loved Dame d'Heronac was not herself. She had
not been herself the night before at dinner either--there was more in
the coming of these two Englishmen than met the eye. He had seen her
with Michael in the morning in the summer-house from a corner of the
garden, too, where he was having a heated argument with the gardener in
chief, as well as when he met them on the causeway bridge. He felt it
his duty to do something to smooth matters, but what he could not
decide. Perhaps she would tell him about it on the morrow, when he met
her as was his custom on days that were not saints' days interfered with
by mass.

"I shall be at the gate at nine o'clock, _ma fille_," he said, when he
wished her good-day. "With your permission, we must decide about the
clematis trellis for the north wall without delay."

Henry accompanied the old man on his walk back to the village--and they
conversed in cultivated and stilted French of philosophy and of Breton
fisher-folk, and of the strange, melancholy type they seemed to have.

"They look ever out to sea," the priest said; "they are watching the
deep waters and are conscious forever of their own and loved ones'
dangers--they are _de braves gens_."

"It seems so wonderful that anything so young and full of life as Mrs.
Howard should have been drawn to live in such an isolated place, does it
not, _mon pere_?" Henry asked. "It seems incongruous."

"When she came first she was very sad. She had cause for much sorrow,
the dear child--and the sea was her mate; together she and I, with the
sea, have studied many things. She deserves happiness, Monsieur, her
soul is as pure and as generous as an angel's--if Monsieur knew what she
does for my poor people and for all who come under her care!"

"It will be the endeavor of my life to make her happy, Father," and Lord
Fordyce's voice was full of feeling.

"Happiness can only be secured in two ways, my son. Either it comes in
the gui