ted. 'I can find my way then. You may go!'

He fell behind, and I strode back through the sunshine and flowers, and
along the grass-grown paths, to the door by which I had come I walked
fast, but his shadow kept pace with me, driving out the unaccustomed
thoughts in which I had been indulging. Slowly but surely it darkened my
mood. After all, this was a little, little place; the people who lived
here--I shrugged my shoulders. France, power, pleasure, life, everything
worth winning, worth having, lay yonder in the great city. A boy might
wreck himself here for a fancy; a man of the world, never. When I
entered the room, where the two ladies stood waiting for me by the
table, I was nearly my old self again. And a chance word presently
completed the work.

'Clon made you understand, then?' the young woman said kindly, as I took
my seat.

'Yes, Mademoiselle,' I answered. On that I saw the two smile at one
another, and I added: 'He is a strange creature. I wonder that you can
bear to have him near you.'

'Poor man! You do not know his story?' Madame said.

'I have heard something of it,' I answered. 'Louis told me.'

'Well, I do shudder at him sometimes,' she replied, in a low voice. 'He
has suffered--and horribly, and for us. But I wish that it had been on
any other service. Spies are necessary things, but one does not wish
to have to do with them! Anything in the nature of treachery is so
horrible.'

'Quick, Louis!' Mademoiselle exclaimed, 'the cognac, if you have any
there! I am sure that you are--still feeling ill, Monsieur.'

'No, I thank you,' I muttered hoarsely, making an effort to recover
myself. 'I am quite well. It was--an old wound that sometimes touches
me.'

CHAPTER IV. MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE

To be frank, however, it was not the old wound that touched me so
nearly, but Madame's words; which, finishing what Clon's sudden
appearance in the garden had begun, went a long way towards hardening
me and throwing me back into myself. I saw with bitterness--what I had
perhaps forgotten for a moment--how great was the chasm that separated
me from these women; how impossible it was that we could long think
alike; how far apart in views, in experience, in aims we were. And while
I made a mock in my heart of their high-flown sentiments--or thought I
did--I laughed no less at the folly which had led me to dream, even for
a moment, that I could, at my age, go back--go back and risk all for a
whim, a scruple,