t he was to discover afterwards. He
bowed again, and kissed Helene's glove, and felt a most unreasonable
dizziness, a wildfire rushing through his young veins; all this for the
first time in his boyish life and from no greater apparent cause than
the sweetness of her voice when she said, "Bonjour, mon cousin!"

Then, before he could turn round, his father was there, carrying one of
the heavy candlesticks, and all the porch was full of light and of
cheerful voices.

"I am triumphant," cried the Comte de Sainfoy. "My wife said I could not
find my way. I felt sure I had not forgotten boyish days so completely,
and Helene was ready to trust herself to me, and glad to wait upon
madame her cousin."

"She is most welcome--you are both most welcome," the beaming master of
the house assured him. "Come in, dear neighbours, I beg. What happiness!
What an end to all this weary time! If a few things in life were
different, I could say I had nothing left to wish for."

"A few things? Can we supply them, dear Urbain?" said the Comte,
affectionately.

"No, Herve, no. They do not concern you, my beloved friend. On your side
all is perfection. But alas! you are not everybody, or everywhere. Never
mind! This is a joy, an honour, indeed, to make one forget one's
troubles."

Angelot had taken the candlestick from his father as they crossed the
hall. He carried it in before the party and set it down in its place,
then stepped back into the shadow while Monsieur Urbain brought them in,
and his mother, still pale, and a little shy or stiff in manner, went
forward to receive them.

"After twenty years!" The Comte de Sainfoy bowed low over the small hand
that lay in his, thin, delicate, if not so white and soft as a court
lady's hand. His lips touched it lightly; he straightened himself, and
looked smiling into her face. He had always admired Anne de Pontvieux.
He might himself have thought of marrying her, in those last days of old
France, from which so great a gulf now parted them, if her family had
been richer and more before the world. As a young man, he had been
surprised at Urbain's good fortune, and slightly envious of it.

"Utterly unchanged, belle cousine!" he said. "What does he mean, that
discontented man, by finding his lot anything short of perfection! Here
you have lived, you and he, in that quietest place that exists in the
very heart of the storm. Both of you have kept your youth, your
freshness, while as for me, wander