eaningly, and with a frosty smile. "The compromise of the
centuries--hein?" he added to the Cure, who, with the Avocat, was now
looking on with some trepidation. "I am wondering if it is quite
legal. It is charming to have such a guard of honour, but I am
wondering--wondering--eh, monsieur l'avocat, is it legal?"

The Avocat made no reply, but the Cure's face was greatly troubled. The
Seigneur's momentary placidity passed.

"I answer for their legality, your Excellency," he said, in a high,
assertive voice.

"Of course, of course, you will answer for it," said the Governor,
smiling enigmatically. He came forward and held out his hand to
Madelinette.

"Madame, I shall remember your kindness, and I appreciate the simple
honours done me here. Your arrival at the moment of my visit is a happy
circumstance."

There was a meaning in his eye--not in his voice--which went straight
to Madelinette's understanding. She murmured something in reply, and a
moment afterwards the Governor, his suite, and the crowd were gone; and
the men-at-arms-the fantastic body of men in their antique livery-armed
with the latest modern weapons, had gone back to civic life again.

Inside the house once more, Madelinette laid her hand upon Louis' arm
with a smile that wholly deceived him for a moment. He thought now that
she must have known of his deformity before she came--the world was so
full of tale-bearers--and no doubt had long since reconciled herself
to the painful fact. She had shown no surprise, no shrinking. There
had been only the one lightning instant in which he had felt a kind of
suspension of her breath and being, but when he had looked her in
the face, she was composed and smiling. After all his frightened
anticipation the great moment had come and gone without tragedy. With
satisfaction he looked in the mirror in the hall as they passed inside
the house. He saw no reason to quarrel with his face. Was it possible
that the deformity did not matter after all?

He felt Madelinette's hand on his arm. He turned and clasped her to his
breast.

He did not notice that she kept her hands under her chin as he drew
her to him, that she did not, as had been her wont, put them on his
shoulders. He did not feel her shrink, and no one, seeing, could have
said that she shrank from him in ever so little.

"How beautiful you are!" he said, as he looked into her face.

"How glad I am to be here again, and how tired I am, Louis!" she said.
"