the candle to the wide-staring eyes, then
felt the heart. "He is gone," he said in an even voice. Stooping for the
knife he had dropped on the floor, he laid it on the body. He looked at
his hands. There was one spot of blood on his fingers. He wiped it off
with his handkerchief, then blowing out the light, he calmly opened the
door of the hut, locked it, went out, and moved on slowly towards the
house.

As he left the hut he was conscious that some one was moving under the
trees by the window, but his mind was not concerned with things outside
himself and the one other thing left for him to do.

He entered the house and went in search of Madelinette. When he reached
the drawing-room, surrounded by eager listeners, she was beginning to
sing. Her bearing was eager and almost tremulous, for, with this crowd
round her and in the flush of this gaiety and excitement, there was
something of that exhilarating air that greets the singer upon
the stage. Her eyes were shining with a look, half-sorrowful,
half-triumphant. Within the past half-hour she had overcome herself;
she had fought down the blind, wild rebellion that, for one moment as
it were, had surged up in her heart. She was proud and glad, and piteous
and triumphant and deeply womanly all at once.

Going to the piano she had looked round for Louis, but he was not
visible. She smiled to herself, however, for she knew that her singing
would bring him--he worshipped it. Her heart was warm towards him,
because of that moment when she rebelled and was hard at soul. She
played her own accompaniment, and he was hidden from her by the piano
as she sang--sang more touchingly and more humanly, if not more
artistically, than she had ever done in her life. The old art was not
so perfect, perhaps, but there was in the voice all that she had learned
and loved and suffered and hoped. When she rose from the piano to a
storm of applause, and saw the shining faces and tearful eyes round her,
her own eyes filled with tears. These people--most of them--had known
and loved her since she was a child, and loved her still without envy
or any taint. Her father was standing near, and with smiling face she
caught from his hand the handkerchief with which he was mopping his
eyes, and kissed him, saying:

"I learned that from the tunes you played on your anvil, dear
smithy-man."

Then she turned again to look for Louis. Near the door she saw him, and
with so strange a face, so wild a look, t