n find another
home----"

She turned swiftly as a ray of light, and disappeared.

"Have you no control over her?" cried Madame angrily, "that she defies
you to your face. It shows the blood that runs in her veins, wayward,
ungrateful thing that no honor can raise, no generosity touch. She has
the heart of a stone. M. Boulle, you have made a fortunate escape."

"But I love her, Madame. And I thought her noble in her refusal, but I
would have taken her to my heart, no matter what she was. And I do not
quite despair. I may find some link that will rehabilitate her. She must
have come from a fine race. There is no peasant blood there."

"Perhaps honorable peasant blood may be cleaner than a king's bastard,"
returned miladi scornfully.

"You have my most fervent sympathy," and M. Destournier wrung the
lover's hand. "But it would be ill work marrying a woman who did not
care for you. Perhaps another year"--should he give him hope? It was
such an honest, earnest face, and he would have been brave to set at
naught family tradition.

They went down the winding stair together. Rose was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh, you will watch over her?" M. Boulle cried, with a lover's
desperation.

"Do not fear. She has been like a child to me. No harm shall come to
her."

Miladi in her transport of rage tore the handkerchief she held in her
hand to shreds, and stamped her foot on the floor.

"She shall never come in this house again, the deceitful, ungrateful
wretch. And he shall not care for her, or befriend her in any way. She
must love him, and it is no child's love, either. Why, I have been blind
and silly all this last year."

Rose had flown out of the house, across the gardens and the settlement
to the woods, where she had spent so many delightful hours. She threw
herself down on the moss and the fragrant pine needles, and gave way to
a fit of weeping that seemed to rend both soul and body. Was she an
outcast? Oh, it could not be that M. Destournier would forsake her. But
she could ask nothing from him, and miladi would never see her again.
Why could she not have loved M. Boulle? Did it take so much love to be a
man's wife? to be held in his arms and kissed, to live with him day by
day--and she shuddered at the thought.

But she was young, and the flood of tears subsided. She sat up, leaning
against a stout pine. Then she rose and peered about. Was it true that
M. Boulle was to go away? What if he came and found her again?