s you please, of course--but no letters or messages,
mind; I trust to your honour. I will not have the child made a
go-between in my cousin's house, or mixed up with matters too old for
her. She knows enough already to do what you want, to tell you that
Mademoiselle Helene is safe and well. I will have nothing more, you
understand. But I think you will be wise to keep away, and this plan may
make absence bearable."

He turned his anxious, smiling face to Angelot. And thus the entire
reconciliation was brought about; the two understood and loved each
other better than ever before, and Riette, as she had herself suggested,
was to take her part in helping Angelot.

Neither Monsieur Urbain, in his great discretion, nor his wife, in her
extreme dislike of Lancilly and all connected with it, chose to say a
word either to Angelot or his uncle about the strange little scene that
had closed the dinner-party. It was better forgotten, they thought. And
Angelot was too proud, too conscious of their opinion, to speak of it
himself.

So the three talked that night about Sonnay-le-Loir and the markets
there, and about the neighbours that Urbain had met, and about certain
defects in one of his horses, and then about the coming vintage and its
prospects.

Urbain fetched down a precious book, considerably out of date now, the
_Theatre d'Agriculture_ of Olivier de Serres, Seigneur du Pradel, and
began studying, as he did every year, the practical advice of that
excellent writer on the management of vineyards. The experience of
Angelot, gained chiefly in wandering round the fields with old Joubard,
differed on some points from that of Monsieur de Serres. He argued with
his father, not at all in the fashion of a young man hopelessly in love;
but indeed, though Helene was the centre of all his thoughts, he was far
from hopeless.

There was a bright spring of life in Angelot, a faith in the future,
which kept him above the most depressing circumstances. The waves might
seem overwhelming, the storm too furious; Angelot would ride on the
waves with an unreasoning certainty that they would finally toss him on
the shore of Paradise. Had not Helene kissed him? Could he not still
feel the sweet touch of her lips, the velvet softness of that pale
cheek? Could his eyes lose the new dream in their sleepy dark depths,
the dream of waking smiles and light in hers, of bringing colour and joy
into that grey, mysterious world of sadness! No; whatever