nously, an
unknown, perhaps impassable barrier erected against the fulfilment of
their hopes; and men and women alike were nervously beginning to handle
the white cards with the big red figures on them, which every one had
attached to his or her clothing.

Marie-Louise found herself involuntarily doing the same--staring at the
little punch-holes along the bottom edge of the card that the doctor on
the ship had put there, one for each day. And there was her name
written there at the top--"Marie-Louise Bernier." And underneath it,
"Paris"--for she had given that as her last residence, because in this
new country none was to know that she had come from Bernay-sur-Mer.
For who could tell what these people here might not do? They might
write to Bernay-sur-Mer, and then all her efforts would have been in
vain, for some one in Bernay-sur-Mer would write to Father Anton,
and--the card dropped from her fingers, and dangled by its string from
the button of her blouse.

The hot, scalding tears were in her eyes again. Memories! Always
memories!

On the faces of those around her, so many of them anxious now, was
written the question that lips in so many different languages were
whispering to each other.

"Will they let me in? What will they do? Will they let me in? Will
they let me in?"

Liberty--for them! Yes, they would go in, as she would go in--and some
of them, perhaps many of them, would find what they had sought. But
she--even here in this strange country, where she could understand no
single word that was spoken, where, surely, now that Jean was gone
again, there would be nothing, no familiar scenes to come to her to
revive those memories--could she find liberty in some day learning to
forget?

It did not seem so now, for it seemed as though all her strength, her
resistance had gone out from her that night in her struggle to send
Jean away, and that it had not come back again. Why--oh, why had the
_bon Dieu_ sent Jean upon that ship? It had been so cruelly hard
before! It did not change anything that he was in the same country,
for he would not stay long, and the country was so many times bigger
than France that they were utterly separated, but it was making it so
hard to be brave now---so much harder--so much harder! And then
suddenly she lifted her head proudly, even though the lips would still
quiver, and though the lashes of her eyes were still wet. What was it,
that old and simple faith, that her