haunt him in his sleep. Excitable, eager, there was an elemental
adaptability in the baker, as easily leading to Avernus as to Elysium.
This appealed to Charley, realising, as he did, that Maximilian Cour
was a reputable citizen by mere accident. The baker's life had run in a
sentimental groove of religious duty; that same sentimentality would,
in other circumstances, have forced him with equal ardour into the broad
primrose path.

In the evening hours and on Sunday Charley had worked at his drawings
for the scenery and costumes of the Play, and completed his translation
of the German text, but there had been days when he could not put pen to
paper. Life to him now was one aching emptiness--since that day at the
Rest of the Flax-beaters Rosalie had been absent. On the very morning
after their meeting by the river she had gone away with her father to
the great hospital at Montreal--not Quebec this time, on the advice of
the Seigneur--as the one chance of prolonging his life. There had
come but one letter from her since that hour when he saw her in the
Seigneur's coach with her father, moving away in the still autumn air, a
piteous appeal in her eyes. The good-bye look she gave him then was with
him day and night.

She had written him one letter, and he had written one in reply, and no
more. Though he was wholly reckless for himself, for her he was prudent
now--there was nothing else to do. To save her--if he could but save her
from himself! If he might only put back the clock!

In his letter to her he had simply said that it were wiser not to
write, since the acting postmistress, the Cure's sister, would note the
exchange of letters, and this would arouse suspicion. He could not
see what was best to do, what was right to do. To wait seemed the only
thing, and his one letter ended with the words: Rosalie, my life is
lived only in the thought of you. There is no hour but I think of you,
no moment but you are with me. The greatest proof of love that man can
give, I will give to you, in the hour fate wills--for us. But now, we
must wait--we must wait, Rosalie. Do not write to me, but know that if I
could go to you I would go; if I could say to you, Come, I would say it.
If the giving of my life would save you any pain or sorrow, I would give
it.

Sitting on his bench at work, it seemed to Charley that sometimes she
was near him, and more than once he turned quickly round as though she
were, in very truth, standing beside