at,
mademoiselle,' I continued with fervour, 'is the stream which flows
between us and separates us; and I know of but one stepping-stone that
can bridge it.'

She looked aside, toying with a piece of thorn-blossom she had picked.
It was not redder than her cheeks.

'That one stepping-stone,' I said, after waiting vainly for any word or
sign from her, 'is Love. Many weeks ago, mademoiselle, when I had little
cause to like you, I loved you; I loved you whether I would or not, and
without thought or hope of return. I should have been mad had I spoken
to you then. Mad, and worse than mad. But now, now that I owe you my
life, now that I have drunk from your hand in fever, and, awaking early
and late, have found you by my pillow--now that, seeing you come in and
out in the midst of fear and hardship, I have learned to regard you as
a woman kind and gentle as my mother--now that I love you, so that to be
with you is joy, and away from you grief, is it presumption in me now,
mademoiselle, to think that that stream may be bridged?'

I stopped, out of breath, and saw that she was trembling. But she spoke
presently. 'You said one stepping-stone?' she murmured.

'Yes,' I answered hoarsely, trying in vain to look at her face, which
she kept averted from me.

'There should be two,' she said, almost in a whisper. 'Your love, sir,
and--and mine. You have said much of the one, and nothing of the other.
In that you are wrong, for I am proud still. And I would not cross the
stream you speak of for any love of yours!'

'Ah!' I cried in sharpest pain.

'But,' she continued, looking up at me on a sudden with eyes that told
me all, 'because I love you I am willing to cross it--to cross it once
for ever, and to live beyond it all my life--if I may live my life with
you.'

I fell on my knee and kissed her hand again and again in a rapture of
joy and gratitude. By-and-by she pulled it from me. 'If you will, sir,'
she said, 'you may kiss my lips. If you do not, no man ever will.'

After that, as may be guessed, we walked every day in the forest, making
longer and longer excursions as my strength came back to me, and the
nearer parts grew familiar. From early dawn, when I brought my love a
posy of flowers, to late evening, when Fanchette hurried her from me,
our days were passed in a long round of delight; being filled full of
all beautiful things--love, and sunshine, and rippling streams, and
green banks, on which we sat together unde