aid no attention to her.

"You, then!"--he whirled on Marie-Louise, grasping her arm fiercely.
"Who has been here?"

"But--but, m'sieu," stammered Marie-Louise, shrinking back in affright,
"no one has been here."

Myrna pressed forward into the room.

"Dad, what _is_ the--" She got no further.

"It is true--I am a fool. I was wrong. Look, Myrna!"--his face
flushed, his eyes lighted with the fire of an enthusiast, he was at the
table, lifting up the little clay figure of the fisherwoman with the
outstretched arms, the beacon, in his hands again. "Look, Myrna! No,
I am not mad--I am only a fool. I, who pride myself as a critic, was
fool enough for a moment to think this the work of perhaps Demaurais,
or Lestrange, or Pitot--when no one of the three even in his greatest
moment of inspiration could approach it! There is life in it. You
feel the very soul. It is sublime! But it is more than that--it is a
stupendous thing, for, since it has been freshly done, and no stranger
to these people has been here, the man who did it must be one of
themselves. Don't you understand, Myrna, don't you understand? The
world will ring with it. It is the discovery of a genius. I make the
statement without reservation. _This is the work of the greatest
sculptor France will have ever known_!"

Father Anton had come forward a little timorously, lacing and unlacing
his fingers. Upon Myrna's face was a sort of bewildered stupefaction.
Marie-Louise, her breath coming in little gasps, was gazing wide-eyed
at the man who held in his hands her beacon, the clay figure she had
seen Jean make.

"Is--is it true--what you say?" she whispered.

Henry Bliss looked at her for a moment, startled--as though he was for
the first time aware of her presence.

"You--yes, of course, you must know about this, as it is in the house
here," he burst out abruptly. "You know who made it?"

"But, yes," said Marie-Louise, and now there was a sudden new note, a
trembling note of pride that struggled for expression in her voice.
"But, yes--it was Jean Laparde."

"Laparde--Jean Laparde?"--his voice was hoarse in its eagerness.
"Quick!" he cried. "Laparde--Jean Laparde? Who is Jean Laparde?"

A flush crept pink into Marie-Louise's face.

"He is my fiance," she said.

-- VI --

THE GIFT

Father Anton, with a smile, his eyes twinkling, looked from one to the
other of the group as much as to say: "There! Is that not an
altogether ch