I
done?"

He tried to take her hand, but she drew it from him. He fell on his
knees and kissed the hem of her gown.

"Helene!"

She stood motionless, unable to speak. But Angelot was not long to be
treated in this chilling fashion. It seemed that he had a good
conscience, and was not afraid to account for any of his actions. He
rose to his feet; no words passed between them; but Helene resisted him
no longer. Her head was leaning on his breast; a long, happy sigh
escaped her; and it was between kisses that he asked her again, "Why are
you angry with me?"

"I am not--not now--I know it is not true," she murmured.

"What, my beloved?"

"You do care for me?"

Angelot laughed. Indeed it did not seem necessary to reassure her on
such a point.

"Because, if you give me up, I shall die," she said. "I should have
died, I think, if I had not seen you to-night. Now they may say and do
what they please."

"What have they been saying and doing? Ah, my sweet, how have they been
tormenting you? You are no happier than when I saw you first, though I
love you so. How you tremble! Sit down here--there, softly--you are
quite safe. What in God's name are we to do? Must I leave you again with
these people?"

For a few minutes they sat in a corner of an old carved bench under the
window, one of the family seats in those more religious days when
grandfathers and grandmothers came to the chapel to pray. Helene leaned
against Angelot, clinging to him, and past his dark profile, dimly
visible in the twilight of stars, she could see the roughly carved and
painted figure of Our Lady, brought from a Spanish convent and much
venerated by that Mademoiselle de Sainfoy who became a Carmelite in the
early days of the order. Helene had fancied, before now, that there was
something motherly in the smile of the statue, neglected so long. She
thought, even as her lover kissed her, that neither the Blessed Virgin,
nor St. Theresa, nor the ancestor who was her disciple, would have been
angry with her and Angelot. Only her own mother, and she for worldly
reasons alone, would find any sin in this sweet human love which wrapped
her round, which, if allowed to have its way, would shield her from all
the miseries of life and keep her in the rapturous peace she enjoyed in
this moment, this fleeting moment, which she could not spoil even by
telling her Angelot why she sent for him.

"Ah, how I wanted you!" she breathed in his ear.

"My love! But