but you are kind! How should you
know--what do you know?"

"I give you my word that by to-morrow evening you shall know where your
child is."

For a moment she was bewildered and overcome, then a look of gratitude,
of luminous hope, covered her face, softening the hardness of its
contour, and she fell on her knees beside the table, dropped her head in
her arms, and sobbed as if her heart would break.

"My little lamb, my little, little lamb-my own dearest!" she sobbed. "I
shall have you again. I shall have you again--all my own!"

He stood and watched her meditatively. He was wondering why it was that
grief like this had never touched him so before. His eyes were moist.
Though he had been many things in his life, he had never been abashed;
but a curious timidity possessed him now.

He leaned over and touched her shoulder with a kindly abruptness, a
friendly awkwardness. "Cheer up," he said. "You shall have your child,
if Dauphin can help you to it."

"If he ever tries to take him from me"--she sprang to her feet, her face
in a fury--"I will--"

For an instant her overpowering passion possessed her, and she stood
violent and wilful; then, under his fixed, exacting gaze, her rage
ceased; she became still and grey and quiet.

"I shall know to-morrow evening, Monsieur? Where?" Her voice was weak
and distant.

He thought for a time. "At my house-at nine o'clock," he answered at
last.

"Monsieur," she said, in a choking voice, "if I get my child again, I
will bless you to my dying day."

"No, no; it will be Dauphin you must bless," he said, and opened the
door for her. As she disappeared into the dusk and silence he adjusted
his eye-glass, and stared musingly after her, though there was nothing
to see save the summer darkness, nothing to hear save the croak of
the frogs in the village pond. He was thinking of the trial of Joseph
Nadeau, and of a woman in the gallery, who laughed.

"Monsieur, Monsieur," called the voice of the Notary from the bedroom.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE CURE AND THE SEIGNEUR VISIT THE TAILOR

It had been a perfect September day. The tailor of Chaudiere had been
busier than usual, for winter was within hail, and careful habitants
were renewing their simple wardrobes. The Seigneur and the Cure arrived
together, each to order the making of a greatcoat of the Irish frieze
which the Seigneur kept in quantity at the Manor. The Seigneur was in
rare spirits. And not without reason; for this