ng out a hand
to her.

She did not dare to take his hand lest her feelings should overcome her;
so with an assumed gaiety she put in it a rose from her basket and said:

"He has been pilfering. Also he was insolent. I suppose he could not
help remembering that I lived at the smithy once--the dear smithy," she
added softly.

"I will go at once and pay the scoundrel his wages," said the Seigneur,
rising, and with a nod to the Cure and his wife opened the door.

"Do not see him yourself, Louis," said Madelinette. "Not I. Havel shall
pay him and he shall take himself off to-morrow morning."

The door closed, and Madelinette was left alone with the Cure. She came
to him and said with a quivering in her voice:

"He mocked Louis."

"It is well that he should go. He is a bad man and a bad servant. I know
him too well."

"You see, he keeps saying"--she spoke very slowly--"that he witnessed
a will the Seigneur made in favour of Monsieur Fournel. He thinks us
interlopers, I suppose."

The Cure put a hand on hers gently. "There was a time when I felt that
Monsieur Fournel was the legal heir to the Seigneury, for Monsieur de la
Riviere had told me there was such a will; but since then I have changed
my mind. Your husband is the natural heir, and it is only just that the
Seigneury should go on in the direct line. It is best."

"Even with all Louis' mistakes?"

"Even with them. You have set them right, and you will keep him
within the bounds of wisdom and prudence. You are his guardian angel,
Madelinette."

She looked up at him with a pensive smile and a glance of gratitude.

"But suppose that will--if there is one--exists, see how false our
position!"

"Do you think it is mere accident that the will has never been found--if
it was not destroyed by the Seigneur himself before he died? No, there
is purpose behind it, with which neither you or I or Louis have anything
to do. Ah, it is good to have you here in this Seigneury, my child! What
you give us will return to you a thousandfold. Do not regret the world
and your work there. You will go back all too soon."

She was about to reply when the Seigneur again entered the room.

"I made up my mind that he should go at once, and so I've sent him
word--the rat!"

"I will leave you two to be drowned in the depths of your own
intelligence," said Madelinette; and taking her empty basket left the
room.

A strange compelling feeling drove her to the library where the fate