e broken
in on this interview, if she had only known. "Victorine, where art thou
loitering?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, sir, do not thou tell my grandfather that I have
talked with thee!" cried Victorine, in feigned terror. "Here I am, aunt;
I will be there in one second," she cried aloud, and ran hastily down
the storeroom. At the door she stopped, hesitated, turned back, and
going towards the window said wistfully: "Thou hast never been here
before all these three months. I suppose thou travellest this way very
seldom."

The full moon shone on Victorine's face as she said this. Her expression
was like that of a wistful little child. Willan Blaycke did not quite
know what he was doing. He reached his hand across the window-sill
towards Victorine; she did not extend hers. "I will come again sooner,"
he said. "Wilt thou not shake hands?"

Victorine advanced, hesitated, advanced again; it was inimitably done.
"The next time, if I know thee better, I might dare," she whispered, and
fled like a deer.

"Where hast thou been?" said Jeanne, angrily. "The supper dishes are
yet all to wash."

Victorine danced gayly around the kitchen floor. "Talking with the son
of thy husband," she said. "He seems to me much cleverer than a magpie."

Jeanne burst out laughing. "Thou witch!" she said, secretly well
pleased. "But where didst thou fall upon him? Thou hast not been in the
bar-room?"

"Nay, he fell upon me, the rather," replied Victorine, artlessly, "as I
was resting me at the window of the long storeroom. He heard me singing,
and came there."

"Did he praise thy voice?" asked Jeanne. "He is a brave singer himself."

"Is he?" said Victorine, eagerly. "He did not tell me that. He said my
voice was like the voice of a wild bird. And there be birds and birds
again, I was minded to tell him, and not all birds make music; but he
seemed to me not one to take jests readily."

"So," said Jeanne; "that he is not. Leaves he early in the morning?"

"I think so," replied Victorine. "He did not tell me, but I heard the
elder man say to Benoit to have the horses ready at earliest light."

"Thou must serve them again in the morning," said Jeanne. "It will be
but the once more."

"Nay," answered Victorine, "I will not."

Something in the girl's tone arrested her aunt's attention. "And why?"
she said sharply, looking scrutinizingly at her.

Victorine returned the gaze with one as steady. It was as well, she
thought, that there shou