had served Madame
de Ferrier's father and grandfather. The gentle old provincial went
about his duty as a religious rite.

There was a pleached walk like that in the marquis' Paris garden, of
branches flattened and plaited to form an arbor supported by tree
columns; which led to a summer-house of stone smothered in ivy. We
walked back and forth under this thick roof of verdure. Eagle's cap of
brown hair was roughened over her radiant face, and the open throat of
her gown showed pulses beating in her neck. Her lifted chin almost
touched my arm as I told her all the Mittau story, at her request.

"Poor Madame d'Angouleme! The cautious priest and the king should not
have taken you from me like that! She knew you as I knew you; and a
woman's knowing is better than a man's proofs. She will have times of
doubting their policy. She will remember the expression of your mouth,
your shrugs, and gestures--the little traits of the child Louis, that
reappear in the man."

"I wish I had never gone to Mittau to give her a moment's distress."

"Is she very beautiful?"

"She is like a lily made flesh. She has her strong dislikes, and one of
them is Louis Philippe--"

"Naturally," said Eagle.

"But she seemed sacred to me. Perhaps a woman brings that hallowedness
out of martyrdom."

"God be with the royal lady! And you, sire!"

"And you!--may you be always with me, Eagle!"

"This journey to Mittau changes nothing. You were wilful. You would go
to the island in Lake George: you would go to Mittau."

"Both times you sent me."

"Both times I brought you home! Let us not be sorrowful to-night."

"Sorrowful! I am so happy it seems impossible that I come from Mittau,
and this day the Marquis du Plessy died to me! I wish the sun had been
tied to the trees, as the goose girl tied her gander."

"But I want another day," said Eagle. "I want all the days that are my
due at home."

We ascended the steps of the stone pavilion, and sat down in an arch
like a balcony over the sunken garden. Pears and apricots, their
branches flattened against the wall, showed ruddy garnered sunlight
through the dusk. The tangled enclosure sloped down to the stream, from
which a fairy wisp of mist wavered over flower bed and tree. Dew and
herbs and the fragrance of late roses sent up a divine breath, invisibly
submerging us, like a tide rising out of the night.

Madame de Ferrier's individual traits were surprised in this nearness,
as they never had