quarter. But
you--you cannot lie as I can. You laugh--ah! A woman tells more lies;
but a man tells them better. Push the bolts, when I am gone."

After his dinner, Sebastian went out, as Barlasch had predicted. He said
nothing to Desiree of Charles or of the future. There was nothing to be
said, perhaps. He did not ask why Mathilde was absent. In the stillness
of the house, he could probably hear her moving in her rooms upstairs.

He had not been long gone when Mathilde came down, dressed to go out.
She came into the kitchen where Desiree was doing the work of the absent
Lisa, who had reluctantly gone to her home on the Baltic coast. Mathilde
stood by the kitchen table and ate some bread.

"The Grafin has arranged to quit Dantzig to-morrow," she said. "I am
going to ask her to take me with her."

Desiree nodded and made no comment. Mathilde went to the door, but
paused there. Without looking round, she stood thinking deeply. They had
grown from childhood together--motherless--with a father whom neither
understood. Together they had faced the difficulties of life; the
hundred petty difficulties attending a woman's life in a strange land,
among neighbours who bear the sleepless grudge of unsatisfied curiosity.
They had worked together for their daily bread. And now the full stream
of life had swept them together from the safe moorings of childhood.

"Will you come too?" asked Mathilde. "All that he says about Dantzig is
true."

"No, thank you," answered Desiree, gently enough. "I will wait here. I
must wait in Dantzig."

"I cannot," said Mathilde, half excusing herself. "I must go. I cannot
help it. You understand?"

"Yes," said Desiree, and nothing more.

Had Mathilde asked her the question six months ago, she would have said
"No." But she understood now, not that Mathilde could love De Casimir;
that was beyond her individual comprehension, but that there was no
alternative now.

Soon after Mathilde had gone, Barlasch returned.

"If Mademoiselle Mathilde is going, she will have to go to-morrow," he
said. "Those that are coming in at the gates now are the rearguard of
the Heudelet Division which was driven out of Elbing by the Cossacks
three days ago."

He sat mumbling to himself by the fire, and only turned to the supper
which Desiree had placed in readiness for him when she quitted the
room and went upstairs. It was he who opened the door for Mathilde,
who returned in half an hour. She thanked him absent-