"I think, my dear friend, I am better knowing it. Shall we tell
Lucille?"

I turned and looked at Madame, whose manner bespoke my attention.
There was more in the words than a single question--indeed, I thought
there were many questions.

"That shall be as you decide."

"I ask your opinion, mon ami?"

"I am not in favour of keeping any secrets from Mademoiselle."

For a time Madame seemed lost in thought.

"If you go to the chateau," she said at length, taking up her
lace-work as she spoke, "you will find Lucille either in the garden or
the chapel, where she daily tends the flowers. Tell her anything--you
please."

I left Madame and walked slowly across the garden. Lucille was not
among the gay flower-borders. I passed by the old sun-dial and into
the shade of the trees that stood by the moat, where the frogs
chattered incessantly in the cool shadows. I never hear the sound now
but something stirs in my breast, which is not regret nor yet entire
happiness, but that strange blending of the two which is far above
the mere earthly understanding of the latter state.

In the shadow of the cypress trees I approached the chapel quietly, of
which the door and windows were alike thrown open. Standing in the
cool shadow of the porch I saw that Lucille was not busy with the
flowers, but having completed her task, knelt for a moment before the
altar, raising to heaven a face surely as pure as that of any angel
there.

I sat down in the porch to wait.

Presently Lucille rose from her knees and turning came towards me. I
thought, as I always did on seeing her after an absence short or long,
that I had never really loved her until that moment.

I looked for some expression of surprise in her eyes, but it seemed
that she must have known who had entered before she turned. Instead I
saw in her face a strange new tenderness that set my heart beating.
She gave me her hand with a gesture of shyness that was likewise
unknown to me.

"Why do you look at me like that?" she asked, sharply.

"I was wondering what your thought was as you came towards me,
Mademoiselle."

"Ah!" she answered, with a shake of the head.

[Illustration: "ME VOILA, IF YOU WANT ME"]

"It could not have been that you were glad to see me here? Yet, one
would almost have thought--"

She broke into a light laugh.

"It is so easy to think wrong," she said.

I had sat down again, hoping that she would do the same; but she
remained standing a few yard