she said with a last effort:

"I will have one bead to pray for you, trejous." She showed her rosary,
and, Huguenot though she was, Guida touched the bead reverently. "And if
there is war, I will have two beads, trejous. A bi'tot--good-bye!"

Guida stood watching her from the doorway, and the last words of the
fisher-wife kept repeating themselves through her brain: "And if there
is war, I will have two beads, trejous."

So, Maitresse Aimable knew she loved Philip! How strange it was that one
should read so truly without words spoken, or through seeing acts which
reveal. She herself seemed to read Maitresse Aimable all at once--read
her by virtue, and in the light, of true love, the primitive and
consuming feeling in the breast of each for a man. Were not words
necessary for speech after all? But here she stopped short suddenly;
for if love might find and read love, why was it she needed speech of
Philip? Why was it her spirit kept beating up against the hedge beyond
which his inner self was, and, unable to see that beyond, needed
reassurance by words, by promises and protestations?

All at once she was angry with herself for thinking thus concerning
Philip. Of course Philip loved her deeply. Had she not seen the light of
true love in his eyes, and felt the arms of love about her? Suddenly she
shuddered and grew bitter, and a strange rebellion broke loose in her.
Why had Philip failed to keep his promise not to see her again after
the marriage, till he should return from Portsmouth? It was selfish,
painfully, terribly selfish of him. Why, even though she had been
foolish in her request--why had he not done as she wished? Was that
love--was it love to break the first promise he had ever made to his
wife?

Yet she excused him to herself. Men were different from women, and men
did not understand what troubled a woman's heart and spirit; they were
not shaken by the same gusts of emotion; they--they were not so fine;
they did not think so deeply on what a woman, when she loves, thinks
always, and acts upon according to her thought. If Philip were only here
to resolve these fears, these perplexities, to quiet the storm in
her! And yet, could he--could he? For now she felt that this storm was
rooting up something very deep and radical in her. It frightened her,
but for the moment she fought it passionately.

She went into her garden; and here among her animals and her flowers it
seemed easier to be gay of heart; and she