to remember that, whatever the D'Arthenays may have been in France, in
my country, in America, madam, they pass for men of honour!"

I bowed, and left her; and now, methought, it was she who was white, and
I thought there was fear in her eyes when she dropped them. But I turned
away, and, passing Yvon's door, went to my own room.

CHAPTER X.

THE shock of my awakening was so violent, the downfall of my air-castles
so sudden and complete, that I think for awhile I had little sense of
what was going on. Yvon came to my door and knocked, and then called;
but I made no answer, and he went away, thinking, I suppose, that I had
forgotten him, and gone to bed. I sat on the side of my bed, where I had
thrown myself, great part of that night; and there was no thought of
sleep in me. My folly loomed large before me; I sat and looked it in the
face. And sometimes, for a few moments, it would not seem altogether
folly. I felt my youth and strength in every limb of me, and I thought,
what could not love do that was as strong as mine? for now I knew that
all these quiet weeks it had been growing to full stature, and that
neither gratitude nor friendship had any considerable part in my
feeling, but here was the one woman in the world for me. And would it be
so hard, I asked, to take her away from all this, and make a home for
her in my own good country, where she should be free and happy as a
bird, with no hateful watchers about her path? And would she not love
the newness, and the greatness and beauty of it all, and the homely
friends whom her brother so truly loved? Could I not say to her, "Come!"
and would she not come with me?

Ah! would she not? And with that there fell from my eyes as it were
scales,--even like the Apostle Paul, with reverence be it said,--and I
saw the thing in its true light. My heart said she would come; had not
her eyes answered mine last night? Was there not for her, too, an
awakening? And if she came,--what then?

I saw her, the delicate lady, in my father's house; not a guest, as Yvon
had been, but a dweller, the wife and daughter of the house, the wife of
a poor man. I remembered all the work that my mother Marie had done so
joyfully, so easily, because she was a working-woman, and these were the
things she had known all her life. This form of grace that filled my
eyes now was no lighter nor more graceful than hers; but the difference!
My mother's little brown hands could do any work that the