f the storm wind, and her soul yearned to their
life, and their mysteriousness.

What she longed for, she herself could not tell. No words can
encompass the desire of pent-up young vitality for the unknown, for
the ideal, for the impossible. But one thing was overpoweringly real:
that was the dread of leaving just then the wide, the open world whose
darkness was filled to her with living scenes of freedom and space,
and blood-stirring emotions; of re-entering the silent room under the
light; of consorting with the shadowy personality, her husband; of
feeling the web of his melancholy, his dreaminess, imprison as it were
the wings of her imagination and the thoughtful kindness of his gaze,
paralyse the course of her hot blood through her veins.

And yet, thither she was going, must be going! Ah Madeleine, fool--you
may well weep, yonder on your pillow, for the happiness that was yours
and that you have dropped from your feeble hands!

* * * * *

In a few minutes the black shadow re-appeared close to her.

"If My Lady will lean on my shoulder, I shall lead her to the boat."
And after a few steps, the voice out of the darkness proceeded in
explanation: "I have not taken a lantern, I have put out those of the
carriage, for I must tell My Lady, that since what arrived this
morning, there may be _gabelous_--they call them the preventive
here--in every corner, and the light might bring them, as it does the
night papilions, and ... as I thought Mademoiselle was to accompany
you--they might have frightened her. These people want to know so
much!"

"I know nothing of what has happened this morning, that you speak of
as if the whole world must know," retorted Lady Landale coolly. "You
are all hatching plots and sitting on secrets, but nobody confides in
me. It seems then, that you expected Mademoiselle, my sister, here for
some purpose and that you regret she did not come; may I ask for an
explanation?"

A few moments elapsed before the man replied, and then it was with
embarrassment and diffidence: "For sure, I am sorry, My Lady ... there
have been misfortunes on the island this morning--nothing though to
concern her ladyship--and, as for Mademoiselle, mother Margery would
have liked to see her, no doubt ... and Maggie the wife also--and--and
no doubt also Mademoiselle would have liked to come.... What do I
know?"

"Oh, of course!" said Molly with her little note of mocking laughter.

Th