quisite, and she
smiles, the smile of a dauntless soul from a weary body.

Poor little hands, poor little feet, so cold, so battered, so
ill-used! He, who would have warmed them in his bosom, given his heart
for them to tread upon, breaks down now, for the first time; and
falling on his knees covers the cold fingers with kisses, and then
lays his lips against those pitiful torn boots.

But she spurns him from her--even from her feet:

"Shame on you!" she says angrily; and adds, more gently, yet with some
contempt: "_Enfant, va!_--is this the time for such follies?"

And, suddenly recalled to honour and grim actuality, he realises with
dismay his breach of trust--he, who in their earlier days in London
had called out that sprightly little emigre merely for the vulgar
flippancy (aimed in compliment, too, at the grave aide-de-camp), "that
the fate of the late Count weighed somewhat lightly upon Madame de
Savenaye;" he, who had struck that too literary countryman of his own
across the face--ay, and shot him in the shoulder, all in the secret
early dawn of the day they left England--for daring to remark within
his hearing: "By George, the handsome Frenchwoman and her cousin may
be a little less than kin, but they are a little more than kind."

But yet, as the rage of love contending in his heart with
self-reproach, he rises to his feet in shame, she gives him her hand
once more, and in a different voice:

"Courage, cousin," says she, "perhaps some day we may both have our
reward. But will not my knight continue to fight for my bidding, even
without hope of such?"

Pondering on this enigmatic sentence he leaves her to her rest.

* * * * *

When next he finds himself by her side the anticipated action has
begun; and it is to be the last day that those beautiful burning eyes
shall see the glory of the rising sun.

The Chouans are fighting like demons, extended in long skirmishing
lines, picking out the cluster of gunners, making right deadly use of
their English powder; imperceptibly but unflinchingly closing their
scattered groups until the signal comes and with ringing cries:
"_Notre Dame d'Auray!_" and "_Vive le roi!_" they charge, undismayed
by odds, the serried ranks of the Republicans.

She, from the top of the druidical stone, watches the progress of the
day. Her red, parted mouth twitches as she follows the efforts of the
men. Behind her, the _gars_ of Savenaye, grasping with