ke one who had been beaten, bruised, and shamed.

At last, before the dawn, she fell asleep. She dreamed that she was in
prison and that George Fournel was her jailor.

She waked to find Louis at her bedside.

"I am holding my seigneurial court to-day," he said.

CHAPTER VI. THE ONE WHO SAW

All day and every day Madelinette's mind kept fastening itself upon one
theme, kept turning to one spot. In her dreams she saw the hanging
lamp, the moving panel, the little cupboard, the fatal paper. Waking and
restlessly busy, she sometimes forgot it for a moment, but remembrance
would come back with painful force, and her will must govern her hurt
spirit into quiet resolution. She had such a sense of humiliation as
though some one dear to her had committed a crime against herself. Two
persons were in her--Madelinette Lajeunesse, the daughter of the village
blacksmith, brought up in the peaceful discipline of her religion,
shunning falsehood and dishonour with a simple proud self-respect; and
Madame Racine, the great singer, who had touched at last the heart of
things; and, with the knowledge, had thrown aside past principles and
convictions to save her stricken husband from misery and humiliation--to
save his health, his mind, his life maybe.

The struggle of conscience and expediency, of principle and
womanliness wore upon her, taking away the colour from her cheeks, but
spiritualising her face, giving the large black eyes an expression of
rare intensity, so that the Avocat in his admiration called her Madonna,
and the Cure came oftener to the Manor House with a fear in his heart
that all was not well. Yet he was met by her cheerful smile, by her
quiet sense of humour, by the touching yet not demonstrative devotion
of the wife to the husband, and a varying and impulsive adoration of
the wife by the husband. One day when the Cure was with the Seigneur,
Madelinette entered upon them. Her face was pale though composed,
yet her eyes had a look of abstraction or detachment. The Cure's face
brightened at her approach. She wore a simple white gown with a bunch of
roses at the belt, and a broad hat lined with red that shaded her face
and gave it a warmth it did not possess.

"Dear Madame!" said the Cure, rising to his feet and coming towards her.

"I have told you before that I will have nothing but 'Madelinette,' dear
Cure," she replied, with a smile, and gave him her hand. She turned to
Louis, who had risen also, and put