ss in case she
wished to avoid the unexpected caller.

"Pray tell mademoiselle that--that----" Virginia began. She had meant to
finish by saying that her business was urgent. But--supposing when she
found herself face to face with the girl in black, the fugitive desires
which had dragged her here refused to be clothed in coherent words?

As the servant waited respectfully for the end of the message, a door
which Virginia remembered as leading into the family chapel suddenly
opened. Mademoiselle Dalahaide came slowly out, her head bent, her long
black dress sweeping the stone floor of the hall in sombre folds. She did
not see the stranger at first; but a faint ejaculation from the lips of
the old Frenchman caused the dark head to be quickly raised.

The eyes of the two girls met. Mademoiselle Dalahaide drew back a little,
her tragically arresting face unlighted by a smile. She looked the
question that she did not speak; but she gave the American no greeting,
and there was something of displeasure or distrust in her level,
searching look.

The moment which Virginia had dreaded, yet sought for, had come. All
self-consciousness left her. She went to meet the other in an eager,
almost childlike way.

"Do forgive me," she said in English. "I had to come. I could not sleep
last night. I got up before any one else was awake, because I--because I
wanted so much to see you, that I couldn't wait: and I wanted to come to
you alone."

Madeleine Dalahaide's faint frown relaxed. Virginia in that mood was
irresistible, even to a woman. Still the girl in black did not smile. She
had almost forgotten that it was necessary and polite to force a smile
for strangers. She had been so much alone, she and sorrow had grown so
intimate, that she had become almost primitively sincere. The ordinary,
pleasant little hypocrisies of the society in which she had once lived
during what now seemed another state of existence, no longer existed for
her.

Nevertheless, she was not discourteous. "You are kind to have taken this
trouble," she said. "It is something about the chateau, no doubt--some
questions which perhaps you forgot to ask yesterday?"

The old man, who understood not a word of English, had discreetly and
noiselessly retired, now that fate had taken the management of the
situation from his hands. The two girls were alone in the great hall, the
chapel door still open behind Madeleine Dalahaide, giving her a
background of red and purp