was under the sea-shadowing Alps, looking up to the red
and gold-rosed heights of a realm of morning that was hers inviolably,
and under which Renee was eternally his.

The interval between then and now was but the space of an unquiet sea
traversed in the night, sad in the passage of it, but featureless--and it
had proved him right! It was to Nevil Beauchamp as if the spirit of his
old passion woke up again to glorious hopeful morning when he stood in
Renee's France.

Tourdestelle enjoyed the aristocratic privilege of being twelve miles
from the nearest railway station. Alighting here on an evening of clear
sky, Beauchamp found an English groom ready to dismount for him and bring
on his portmanteau. The man said that his mistress had been twice to the
station, and was now at the neighbouring Chateau Dianet. Thither
Beauchamp betook himself on horseback. He was informed at the gates that
Madame la Marquise had left for Tourdestelle in the saddle only ten
minutes previously. The lodge-keeper had been instructed to invite him to
stay at Chateau Dianet in the event of his arriving late, but it would be
possible to overtake madame by a cut across the heights at a turn of the
valley. Beauchamp pushed along the valley for this visible projection; a
towering mass of woodland, in the midst of which a narrow roadway, worn
like the track of a torrent with heavy rain, wound upward. On his descent
to the farther side, he was to spy directly below in the flat for
Tourdestelle. He crossed the wooded neck above the valley, and began
descending, peering into gulfs of the twilight dusk. Some paces down he
was aided by a brilliant half-moon that divided the whole underlying
country into sharp outlines of dark and fair, and while endeavouring to
distinguish the chateau of Tourdestelle his eyes were attracted to an
angle of the downward zigzag, where a pair of horses emerged into broad
light swiftly; apparently the riders were disputing, or one had overtaken
the other in pursuit. Riding-habit and plumed hat signalized the sex of
one. Beauchamp sung out a gondolier's cry. He fancied it was answered.

He was heard, for the lady turned about, and as he rode down, still
uncertain of her, she came cantering up alone, and there could be no
uncertainty.

Moonlight is friendless to eyes that would make sure of a face long
unseen. It was Renee whose hand he clasped, but the story of the years on
her, and whether she was in bloom, or wan as the b