to be an
absorbing interest. He selected the books she was to read, and sent her
boxes of them. It had been agreed before he left that he would not
return to Heronac for some time; but that in late October, when the
Princess and Mr. Cloudwater got back to Paris, that if they could be
persuaded to come to London, Sabine would accompany them, and make the
acquaintance of Henry's mother and some of his family--who would be in
ignorance of there being any tie between them, and the whole thing could
be done casually and with good sense.

"I want my mother and my sisters to love you, darling," Henry wrote,
"without a prejudiced eye. My mother would find you perfect, whatever
you were like, if she knew that you were my choice--and for the same
reason my sisters would perhaps find fault with you; so I want you to
make their conquest without any handicap."

Sabine, writing one of her long letters to Moravia in Italy, said:

I am very happy, Morri. This calm Englishman is teaching me such a
number of new aspects of life, and making me more determined than
ever to be a very great lady in the future. We are so clever in our
nation, and all the young vitality in us is so splendid, when it is
directed and does not turn to nerves and fads. I am growing so much
_finer_, my dear, under his guidance. You will know me when we
meet--because each day I grow more to understand.

The Pere Anselme had only one moment of doubt again, just the last
morning before his Dame d'Heronac left for Paris when October had come.
It was raining hard, and he found her in the great sitting-room with a
legal-looking document in her hand. Her face was very pale, and lying on
the writing-table beside her was an envelope directed and stamped.

It contained her refusal to return to her husband signed and sealed.

The old priest did not ask her any questions; he guessed, and
sympathized.

But his lady was too restless to begin their reading, and stole from
window to window looking out on the gray sea.

"I shall come here for six months in the year just as always, Father,"
she said at last. "I can never sever myself from Heronac."

"God forbid," exclaimed the priest, aghast. "If you left us, the sun no
more would seem to shine."

"And sometimes I will come--alone--because there will be times, my
Father, when I shall want to fight things out--alone."

The Pere Anselme took some steps nearer her, and after a moment said