last daylight, and the
whippoorwills were calling and the water singing in the reeds. It was
a silent meal, but I sat beside the woman, and when it was over I drew
her with me to the shore. It was very still. Fireflies danced in the
grasses, and the stars pricked out mistily through a gauze of cloud. I
wrapped the woman in her fur coat, and bade her sit, while I stretched
myself at her feet. Then I turned to her.

"Madame, have you questions for me that you did not wish the men to
hear?"

She sat very quietly, but I knew that her hand, which was within touch
of mine, grew suddenly rigid.

"Monsieur, you heard nothing of Lord Starling?"

I touched her hand lightly. "Nothing, madame. I have no news."

"Then matters stand just as they did a week ago?"

I hesitated. "As concerns Lord Starling, yes. As concerns
ourselves---- Madame, I carry a lighter heart than I did. All this
week I have feared that you were fretting at the loneliness and the
rough surroundings. But I find you serene and the surface of life
smooth. It is a gallant spirit that you bring to this situation. I
thank you, madame."

She did not speak for a moment, so that I wondered if I had vexed her.
I looked up straight into her great eyes that were full on me, and
there was something disquietingly alight in her glance, a flicker of
that lightning that had played between us on the day of the storm.

"Monsieur!" she cried, with a little sobbing laugh. "I beg you never
to thank me--for anything. The stream of gratitude must always run
from me to you. I have not been serene because of any will of mine.
It has been instinctive. I can sometimes carry out a fixed purpose,
but I do it stiffly, inflexibly, not as you do, with a laugh and a
shrug, monsieur. No, no! My serenity has not been calculated. I have
been--I have been almost happy. It is strange, but it is true."

I drew my hand away from her finger tips, for my own were shaking.
"Madame, what makes you happy?"

She looked down at me with frank seriousness, but her eyes still kept
their sweet, strange brightness; she pressed her palms together as she
always did when much in earnest.

"Monsieur, is it so strange after all? Think of the wonder of what I
see about me! The great stars, the dawns, and the strange waters that
go no one knows where. I have lived all my life in courts and have not
felt trammeled by them, but now---- Monsieur, there is a freedom, yes,
and a happi