ted myself by the most frantic efforts--although
the folding was soft and tender--and I loved that impression. Why? I
cannot say.

His words of love were not addressed to me; from his exclamation I
knew that the real and present Molly was not the true object of his
sudden ecstasy.

And yet I am glad that this is the first man who has been able to kiss
Molly de Savenaye. It is quite incomprehensible; I ought to be
indignant.

Now the whole secret of my reception is plain to see, and it is
pathetic; Sir Adrian Landale was in love with my mother; when she was
an unprotected widow he followed her to our own country; if she had
not died soon after, he would have married her.

What a true knight must this Sir Adrian be, to keep so fresh for
twenty years the remembrance of his boyish love that when I came in
upon him to look at him with _her_ eyes, it was to find him pondering
upon her, and to fill his soul with the rapturous thought that his
love had come back to him. Though I was aware that all this fervour
was not addressed to me, there was something very gratifying in being
so like one who could inspire such long-lived passion.--Yes, it was
unexpectedly pleasant and comforting to be so received. And the tender
care, the thoughtful solicitude next bestowed on the limp and
dishevelled waif of the sea by my _beau tenebreux_ were unmistakably
meant for Molly and no one else, whatever his first imaginings may
have been, and they were quite as interesting to receive.

The half-hour I spent, cosily ensconced by his hands, and waited upon
by his queer household, was perhaps the best I have ever known. He
stood by the fireplace, looking down from his great height, with a
wondering smile upon me. I declare that the loving kindness of his
eyes, which he has wide, grey, and beautiful, warmed me as much as the
pyramid of logs he had set burning on the hearth!

I took a good reckoning of the man, from under the gigantic collar, in
which, I felt, my head rested like a little egg at the bottom of a
warm nest. "And so," I thought, "here is the Light-keeper of Scarthey
Island!" And I was obliged to confess that he was a more
romantic-looking person than even in my wildest dreams I had pictured
to myself--that in fact I had found out for the first time _the man_
really approved of.

And I congratulated myself on my own cleverness--for it was evident
that, just as I had suspected from Rene's reticent manner, even by him
our existenc