hat, unheeding eager requests
to sing again, she responded to the gesture he made, made her way
through the crowd to the hall-way, and followed him up the stairs, and
to the little boudoir beside her bedroom. As she entered and shut the
door, a low sound like a moan broke from him. She went quickly to lay
a hand upon his arm, but he waved her back. "What is it, Louis?" she
asked, in a bewildered voice. "Where is the will?" he said.

"Where is the will, Louis," she repeated after him mechanically, staring
at his face, ghostly in the moonlight.

"The will you found behind the picture in the library."

"O Louis!" she cried, and made a gesture of despair. "O Louis!"

"You found it, and Tardif stole it and took it to Quebec."

"Yes, Louis, but Louis--ah, what is the matter, dear! I cannot bear that
look in your face. What is the matter, Louis?"

"Tardif took it to Fournel, and you followed. And I have been living in
another man's house, on another's bread--"

"O Louis, no--no--no! Our money has paid for all."

"Your money, Madelinette!" His voice rose.

"Ah, don't speak like that! See, Louis. It can make no difference. How
you have found out I do not know, but it can make no difference. I did
not want you to know--you loved the Seigneury so. I concealed the will;
Tardif found it, as you say. But, Louis, dear, it is all right. Monsieur
Fournel would not take the place, and--and I have bought it."

She told her falsehood fearlessly. This man's trouble, this man's peace,
if she might but win it, was the purpose of her life.

"Tardif said that--he said that you--that you and Fournel--"

She read his meaning in his tone, and shrank back in terror, then with a
flush, straightened herself, and took a step towards him.

"It was natural that you should not care for a hunchback like me," he
continued, "but--"

"Louis!" she cried, in a voice of anguish and reproach.

"But I did not doubt you. I believed in you when he said it, as I
believe in you now when you stand there like that. I know what you have
done for me--"

"I pleaded with Monsieur Fournel, knowing how you loved the
Seigneury--pleaded and offered to pay three times the price--"

"Yourself would have been a hundred million times the price. Ah, I know
you, Madelinette--I know you now! I have been selfish, but I see all
now. Now when all is over--" he seemed listening to noises with out--"I
see what you have done for me. I know how you have sacrificed all for