did when I was little. And to think that it's true, true!
To think that once there truly were men like that--sans peur et sans
reproche! It makes life worth while to think that those men lived even
if it was long ago."

Ste. Marie bent his head over the little book, for he could not look at
Mlle. O'Hara just then. It seemed to him well-nigh the most pathetic
speech that he had ever heard. His heart bled for her. Out of what mean
shadows had the girl to turn her weary eyes upward to this sunlight of
ancient heroism!

"And yet, Mademoiselle," said he, gently, "I think there are such men
alive to-day, if only one will look for them. Remember, they were not
common even in Bayard's time. Oh yes, I think there are preux chevaliers
nowadays, only perhaps they don't go about things in quite the same
fashion. Other times, other manners," he said again.

"Do you know any such men?" she demanded, facing him with shadowy eyes.

And he said: "Yes, I know men who are in all ways as honorable and as
high-hearted as Bayard was. In his place they would have acted as he
did, but nowadays one has to practise heroism much less
conspicuously--in the little things that few people see and that no one
applauds or writes books about. It is much harder to do brave little
acts than brave big ones."

"Yes." she agreed, slowly. "Oh yes, of course."

But there was no spirit in her tone, rather a sort of apathy. Once more
the leaves overhead swayed in the breeze, opened a tiny rift, and the
little trembling ray of sunshine shot down to her where she sat. She
stretched out one hand cup-wise, and the sunbeam, after a circling
gyration, darted into it and lay there like a small golden bird panting,
as it were, from fright.

"If I were a painter," said Ste. Marie, "I should be in torture and
anguish of soul until I had painted you sitting there on a stone bench
and holding a sunbeam in your hand. I don't know what I should call the
picture, but I think it would be something figurative--symbolic. Can you
think of a name?"

Coira O'Hara looked up at him with a slight smile, but her eyes were
gloomy and full of dark shadows. "It might be called any one of a great
number of things, I should think," said she.
"Happiness--belief--illusion. See! The sunbeam is gone."

* * * * *

XXI

A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR

Ste. Marie remained in his room all the rest of that day, and he did not
see Mlle. O'Hara agai