in the great chair on one side of the table. "Be seated;
tell me your wish."

"It is to serve you," said Elizabeth, a little proudly. "I have not
come to ask favor for myself or mine. I came across the sea for you
and him."

She spoke now with vehemence, and as she spoke glanced at the
portrait in the alcove. Quickly the eyes of Madeline Desperiers
followed hers. How had this stranger managed to discover what was so
securely hidden from the observation of ordinary eyes? She did not
even suspect the light which had illumined that dim recess, and made
it brighter to the gazer than the bright garden even.

"This is Foray," said Elizabeth, exposing now the token that would
instantly make all plain and equal between them. "I should have sent
it to you, Madam, when I wrote; but there was more to be done,--and
so I came. I am Elizabeth Montier. I am a soldier's daughter; so, he
said, are you."

The lady's answer was not at first by speech. She arose, swiftly as
light moves she moved, and brought her guest up to the window of the
shadowy room. Well she scanned the face of Elizabeth.

"Truth," she murmured. "It was you that wrote. You are Truth. You
speak it. Blessings on you! Blessings descend upon you from all the
saints and heroes who have moved and suffered here! Do you come from
him,--Stephen Cordier?"

How proudly and how tenderly she spoke that name! To hear her soothed
the heart of Elizabeth Montier,--soothed her, and made her strong.

"Is that his name?" she asked, pointing to the portrait. "We call
him Manuel." She paused a moment, but not for an answer. Before
Madeline could speak, she went on,--

"If you can hear me, I will tell you of him, and why I am here."

"Tell me all. I can bear to hear anything that you can endure to tell.
You are his friend. I claim you for mine, too. You came to find me.
Speak."

This was the utterance of a calm self-knowledge. By what she had
endured, the woman knew what she could yet endure.

Without pause Elizabeth now spoke. Without interruption the lady
listened,--listened while this young stranger told the life of the
past months, in which he was concerned,--of the garden where she
worked and he walked,--of her father, the musician,--of their old
home near the barracks, and the new home in the prison,--of the day
when he first told her of his country and his love,--how for him she
had written the letter, repeating oftentimes in the narration the
very words he had used,