me had come to her, he had
protested to himself that it was honour for honour; and every day he
had laboured, sometimes how fantastically, how futilely! to dignify his
position, to enhance his importance in her eyes. She had understood it
all, had read him to the last letter in the alphabet of his mind and
heart. She had realised the consternation of the people, and she knew
that, for her sake, and because the Cure had commanded, all the obsolete
claims he had made were responded to by the people. Certainly he had
affected them by his eloquence and his fiery kindness, but at the same
time they had shrewdly smelt the treason underneath his ardour. There
was a definite limit to their loyalty to him; and, deprived of the
Seigneury, he would count for nothing.

A hundred thoughts like these went through her mind as she stood by the
table under the hanging lamp, her face white as the loose robe she wore,
her eyes hot and staring, her figure rigid as stone.

To-morrow--how could she face to-morrow, and Louis! How could she tell
him this! How could she say to him, "Louis, you are no longer Seigneur.
The man you hate, he who is your inveterate enemy, who has every reason
to exact from you the last tribute of humiliation, is Seigneur here!"
How could she face the despair of the man whose life was one inward
fever, one long illusion, which was yet only half an illusion, since he
was forever tortured by suspicion; whose body was wearing itself out,
and spirit was destroying itself in the struggle of a vexed imagination!

She knew that Louis' years were numbered. She knew that this blow would
break him body and soul. He could never survive the humiliation. His
sensitiveness was a disease, his pride was the only thing that kept
him going; his love of her, strong as it was, would be drowned in an
imagined shame!

It was midnight. She was alone with this secret. She held the paper in
her hand, which was at once Louis' sentence or his charter of liberty. A
candle was at her hand, the doors were shut, the blinds drawn, the house
a frozen silence--how cold she was, though it was the deep of summer!
She shivered from head to foot, and yet all day the harvest sun had
drenched the room in its heat.

Yet her blood might run warm again, her cold cheeks might regain their
colour, her heart beat quietly, if this paper were no more! The thought
made her shrink away from herself, as it were, yet she caught up the
candle and lighted it.

Fo