sent Marcel for a pail of
water, made some tea, spread the table, and sat down opposite to him.
For a time she kept her eyes turned away from him, while she talked
about all sorts of things. Then she fell silent for a little, still not
looking at him. She got up and moved about the room, arranged two or
three packages on the shelves, shut the damper of the stove, glancing at
Marcel's back out of the corners of her eyes. Then she came back to her
chair, pushed her cup aside, rested both elbows on the table and her
chin in her hands, and looked Marcel square in the face with her clear
brown eyes.

"My friend," she said, "are you an honest man, un brave garcon?"

For an instant he could say nothing. He was so puzzled. "Why yes,
Nataline," he answered, "yes, surely--I hope."

"Then let me speak to you without fear," she continued. "You do not
suppose that I am ignorant of what I have done this night. I am not a
baby. You are a man. I am a girl. We are shut up alone in this house for
two weeks, a month, God knows how long. You know what that means, what
people will say. I have risked all that a girl has most precious. I have
put my good name in your hands."

Marcel tried to speak, but she stopped him.

"Let me finish. It is not easy to say. I know you are honourable.
I trust you waking and sleeping. But I am a woman. There must be no
love-making. We have other work to do. The light must not fail. You will
not touch me, you will not embrace me--not once--till after the boat has
come. Then"--she smiled at him like a sunburned angel--"well, is it a
bargain?"

She put out one hand across the table. Marcel took it in both of his
own. He did not kiss it. He lifted it up in front of his face.

"I swear to you, Nataline, you shall be to me as the Blessed Virgin
herself."

The next day they put the light in order, and the following night they
kindled it. They still feared another attack from the mainland, and
thought it needful that one of them should be on guard all the time,
though the machine itself was working beautifully and needed little
watching. Nataline took the night duty; it was her own choice; she loved
the charge of the lamp. Marcel was on duty through the day. They were
together for three or four hours in the morning and in the evening.

It was not a desperate vigil like that affair with the broken clockwork
eight years before. There was no weary turning of the crank. There was
just enough work to do about t