ut, getting back her self-command by
physical action.

He had risen, but did not follow her. In a few minutes she came back
through the darkness, and setting a hand on each of his shoulders said
quietly: "I am sorry--the man is dead to you--I am sorry you ever knew
his name."

"But I do know it. It is with me, and must ever be until I die. I am to
try to forget--forget! That I cannot. The sea makes him as one dead to
me; but if ever I return to France--"

"Hush! It must be as I have said. If he were within reach do you think I
would talk as I do?"

The young man leaned over and kissed her. This was his last secret. "I
am not fool enough to cry for what fate has swept beyond my reach. Let
us drop it. I did not want to talk of it. We will let the dead past bury
its hatred and think only of that one dear memory, mother. And now will
you not go to bed, so as to be strong for to-morrow?"

"Not yet," she said. "Go and smoke your pipe with that good captain. I
want to be alone." He kissed her forehead and went away.

The river was still; the stars came out one by one, and a great planet
shone distinct on the mirroring plain. Upon the shore near by the young
frogs croaked shrilly. Fireflies flashed over her, but heedless of this
new world she sat thinking of the past, of their wrecked fortunes, of
the ruin which made the great duke, her cousin, counsel emigration, a
step he himself did not take until the Terror came. She recalled her
refusal to let him help them in their flight, and how at last, with a
few thousand livres, they had been counseled to follow the many who had
gone to America.

Then at last she rose, one bitter feeling expressing itself over and
over in her mind in words which were like an echo of ancestral belief,
in the obligation old noblesse imposed, no matter what the cost. An
overmastering thought broke from her into open speech as she cried
aloud: "Ah, my God! why did he not say he was the Vicomte de Courval!
Oh, why--"

"Did you call, mother?" said the son.

"No. I am going to the cabin, Rene. Good night, my son!"

He laid down the pipe he had learned to use in England and which he
never smoked in her presence; caught up her cashmere shawl, a relic of
better days, and carefully helped her down the companionway.

Then he returned to his pipe and the captain, and to talk of the new
home and of the ship's owner, Mr. Hugh Wynne, and of those strange, good
people who called themselves Friends, and