r scented limes, telling one
another all we had ever thought, and especially all we had ever thought
of one another. Sometimes--when the light was low in the evening--we
spoke of my mother; and once--but that was in the sunshine, when the
bees were humming and my blood had begun to run strongly in my veins--I
spoke of my great and distant kinsman, Rohan. But mademoiselle would
hear nothing of him, murmuring again and again in my ear, 'I have
crossed, my love, I have crossed.'

Truly the sands of that hour-glass were of gold. But in time they
ran out. First M. Francois, spurred by the restlessness of youth, and
convinced that madame would for a while yield no further, left us, and
went back to the world. Then news came of great events that could not
fail to move us. The King of France and the King of Navarre had met at
Tours, and embracing in the sight of an immense multitude, had repulsed
the League with slaughter in the suburb of St. Symphorien. Fast on this
followed the tidings of their march northwards with an overwhelming army
of fifty-thousand men of both religions, bent, rumour had it, on the
signal punishment of Paris.

I grew--shame that I should say it--to think more and more of these
things; until mademoiselle, reading the signs, told me one day that we
must go. 'Though never again,' she added with a sigh, 'shall we be so
happy.'

'Then why go?' I asked foolishly.

'Because you are a man,' she answered with a wise smile, 'as I would
have you be, and you need something besides love. To-morrow we will go.'

'Whither?' I said in amazement.

'To the camp before Paris,' she answered. 'We will go back in the light
of day--seeing that we have done nothing of which to be ashamed--and
throw ourselves on the justice of the King of Navarre. You shall place
me with Madame Catherine, who will not refuse to protect me; and
so, sweet, you will have only yourself to think of. Come, sir,' she
continued, laying her little hand in mine, and looking into my eyes,
'you are not afraid?'

'I am more afraid than ever I used to be,' I said trembling.

'So I would have it,' she whispered, hiding her face on my shoulder.
'Nevertheless we will go.'

And go we did. The audacity of such a return in the face of Turenne,
who was doubtless in the King of Navarre's suite, almost took my breath
away; nevertheless, I saw that it possessed one advantage which no other
course promised--that, I mean, of setting us right in the eyes of th