e and not insult you, though you've
insulted me."

"I meant no insult, Elise. I want to help you; that is all. I know how
hard it is to confide in one's kinsfolk, and I wish with all my heart I
might be your friend, if you ever need me."

Elise met her sympathetic look clearly and steadily. "Speak plain to me,
madame," she said.

"Elise, I saw some one climb out of your bedroom window," was the slow
reply.

"Oh, my God!" said the girl; "oh, my God!" and she stared blankly for
a moment at Madame Chalice. Then, trembling greatly, she reached to the
table for a cup of water.

Madame Chalice was at once by her side. "You are ill, poor girl," she
said anxiously, and put her arm around her.

Elise drew away.

"I will tell you all, madame, all; and you must believe it, for, as God
is my judge, it is the truth." Then she told the whole story, exactly as
it happened, save mention of the kisses that Valmond had given her.
Her eyes now and again filled with tears, and she tried, in her poor
untutored way, to set him right. She spoke for him altogether, not for
herself; and her listener saw that the bond which held the girl to the
man might be proclaimed in the streets, with no dishonour.

"That's the story, and that's the truth," said Elise at last. "He's a
gentleman, a great man, and I'm a poor girl, and there can be nothing
between us; but I'd die for him."

She no longer resented Madame Chalice's solicitude: she was passive, and
showed that she wished to be alone.

"You think there's going to be great trouble?" she asked, as Madame
Chalice made ready to go.

"I fear so, but we will do all we can to prevent it." Elise watched her
go on towards the Manor in the declining sunlight, then turned heavily
to her work again.

There came to her ears the sound of a dog-churn in the yard outside, and
the dull roll and beat seemed to keep time to the aching pulses in her
head, in all her body. One thought kept going through her brain:
there was, as she had felt, trouble coming for Valmond. She had the
conviction, too, that it was very near. Her one definite idea was, that
she should be able to go to him when that trouble came; that she should
not fail him at his great need. Yet these pains in her body, this
alternate exaltation and depression, this pitiful weakness! She must
conquer it. She remembered the hours spent at his bedside; the moments
when he was all hers--by virtue of his danger and her own unwavering
care of hi