it?"

For a moment Jean did not speak. There were tears in her eyes! A
twinge of guilty confusion seized him. Yes, it was so--Marie-Louise
had been forgotten. Yesterday he had given it to Marie-Louise. But
who would have thought it would make any difference to her--a thing
like that! She was perhaps angry for the moment, but it would be only
for the moment.

"_Mais, sacre nom_!" he exclaimed, and forced a laugh. "And what of
it? It is nothing! I will make you another."

She did not answer; but into the brown eyes came a miserable hurt, and
into the face a sudden whiteness. It was only the day before that he
had given it to her, and had said it was a beacon, and that the beacon
was herself with arms outstretched to welcome him always. It had meant
so much to her--and now it seemed to have meant so little to Jean.

Jean shifted uneasily, as she did not speak.

"I will make you another, Marie-Louise," he blurted out appeasingly.
"To-day--to-morrow--whenever you like, I will make you another. Then
it will be all right, eh, _petite_?"

She shook her head--and the words came very slowly.

"You can never make another beacon, Jean."

"How--not another?" he cried impetuously. "I can make a thousand! Did
I not tell you that it was you--has it not those lips that I could
fashion even in the dark, even if you were far away from me! _Tiens_,
do you not see--I could make a thousand! And to-morrow you shall have
another."

The dark eyes were full.

"Was it yours to give, Jean?" she asked.

It was true! He had nothing to say to that. She was crying. He was
angry now because he could say nothing, because there was no excuse for
what he had done--and yet he would do it again. But he could not tell
Marie-Louise that though, _pardieu_! She would only cry the harder.
And because she was right and he had nothing to say, he groped, angry
with himself, for some defence.

"Ah!" he burst out sharply. "So that is it! Yesterday you would have
thought nothing of it, but now you have been listening to what they
say, and you believe it all--that it is worth a great deal of money,
maybe a hundred francs, eh? Well, it is not--it is worth nothing! You
have nothing to cry over."

Wide-eyed, as though a whip-lash had curled across her face, she drew
back, her small hands shut tightly at her sides, as she looked at him.
And then somehow that little prayer that she had prayed to the _bon
Dieu_ last night came back t