double zeros for
ten bore."

"_Vive le cure!_" I shouted, "the good old boy to let us know. A
northeast gale at last--a howler," he says.

"He is charming--the cure," breathed Alice, her breast
heaving--"Charming!" she repeated in a voice full of suppressed emotion.

Tanrade did not speak. He had let the despatch slip to the floor and sat
staring at his glass.

"You'll come, of course," I said with sudden apprehension, but he only
shook his head. "What! you're not going?" I exclaimed in amazement.
"We'll kill fifty ducks a night--it's the gale we've been waiting for."

I saw the sullen gleam that had crept into Alice's eyes soften; she drew
near him--she barely touched his arm:

"Go, _mon cher_!" she said simply--"if you wish."

He lifted his head with a grim smile, and I saw their eyes meet. I well
knew what was passing in his mind--his promise to her to work--more than
this, I knew he had not the heart to leave her during her well-earned
rest.

"_Ah! les hommes!_" Alice exclaimed, turning to me impetuously--"you are
quite crazy, you hunters."

I bowed in humble apology and again her dark eyes softened to
tenderness.

"_Non_--forgive me, _mon ami_," she went on, "you are sane enough until
news comes of those wretched little ducks, then, _mon Dieu!_ there is no
holding you. Everything else goes out of your head; you become as mad as
children rushing to a fete. Is it not so?"

Still Tanrade was silent. Now and then he gave a shrug of his big
shoulders and toyed with his half empty glass of liqueur. _Sapristi!_
it is not easy to decide between the woman you love and a northeast gale
thrashing the marsh in front of my house abandoned. He, like myself,
could already picture in his mind's eye duck after duck plunge out of
the night among our live decoys. My ears, like his own, were already
ringing with the roar of the guns from the _gabions_--I could not resist
a last appeal.

"Come," I insisted--"both of you--no--seriously--listen to me. There is
plenty of dry wood in the garret; you shall have the _chambre d'amis_,
dear friend, and this brute of a composer shall bunk in my room--we'll
live, and shoot and be happy. Suzette will be overjoyed at your coming.
Let me wire her to have breakfast ready for us?"

Alice laughed softly: "You are quite crazy, my poor friend," she said,
laying her white hand on my shoulder. "You will freeze down there in
that stone house of yours. Oh, la! la!" she sighed knowingly--"t