self--that is how he had pictured the rescue--but the
proprietor, dull and unimaginative tradesman, declined firmly. It was a
hireling who drove the car to Beverly Stoke. Anne, unhatted and
uncloaked, admitted him.

"You are not ready?"

"My dear friend, how can I----?"

"You are not coming?" His hands dropped to his sides and his face was
the incarnation of disappointment.

"Let us talk things over reasonably," she urged, opening the parlour
door.

"But I have brought the automobile."

"He can wait for five minutes, can't he?"

"He can wait till Doomsday," said Aristide.

"Take off your dripping coat. You must be wet through. Oh, how impulsive
you are!"

He took off his overcoat dejectedly and followed her into the parlour,
where she tried to point out the impossibility of his scheme. How could
she abandon her home at a moment's notice? Failing to convince him, she
said at last in some embarrassment, but with gentle dignity: "Suppose we
did run away together in your romantic fashion, would it not confirm the
scandal in the eyes of this wretched village?"

"You are right," said Aristide. "I had not thought of it."

He knew himself to be a madman. It was not thus that ladies were rescued
from calumny. But to leave her alone to face it for time indefinite was
unthinkable. And, meanwhile, what would become of him severed from her
and little Jean? He sighed and looked around the little room where he
had been so happy, and at the sweet-faced woman whose companionship had
been so dear to him. And then the true meaning of all the precious
things that had been his life for the past two months appeared before
him like a smiling valley hitherto hidden and now revealed by dissolving
mist. A great gladness gathered round his heart. He leaned across the
table by which he was sitting and looked at her and for the first time
noticed that her eyes were red.

"You have been crying, dear Anne," said he, using her name boldly.
"Why?"

A man ought not to put a question like that at a woman's head and bid
her stand and deliver. How is she to answer? Anne felt Aristide's bright
eyes upon her and the colour mounted and mounted and deepened on her
cheeks and brow.

"I don't like changes," she said in a low voice.

Aristide slipped noiselessly to the side of her chair and knelt on one
knee and took her hand.

"Anne--my beloved Anne!" said he.

And Anne neither moved nor protested, but looked away from him into the
fire.