their young hearts.

"Marguerite," Claude said, pressing her tenderly to him, "this is more
than I can bear. You do not blame me, but I know that I am to blame. I
knew your uncle, and I should never have allowed myself to bring you to
this."

"Hush, dear, you are mad to speak so! Neither of us is to blame. No one
could have foretold the lengths to which my uncle's stubborn will would
carry him. But, my own, even at this time, each of us can say that we
have known happiness. I would have had it otherwise; but had I to live
my life over again, I could not have acted but as I did."

"Dear, I know it. But I cannot forget that Bastienne and Marie owe their
deaths to me."

"You are gloomy to-night, love! Neither died with a complaining word on
her lips. It was not you, nor my uncle, who cut them off, but fate.
Dearest, the night wind cuts you keenly," she added, as Claude gave way
to a sudden fit of coughing. "Let us return to the house."

"I dread the loneliness," said Claude. "Ah, Marguerite, I am weak
to-night, unmanly to-night! I felt at every step I took to the beach
that the spirits of those two murdered women were walking beside me, and
yet I welcomed them not. I trembled."

"You are indeed weak, my love. But be strong. We have yet a hard fight
to fight. We must not give in till we see France."

"See France! I shall never see it! It is hard, when life promised so
fair, to have to lay it down away from the camp and the court. I had
hoped yet to win myself a name; not for my own sake, but that you, my
queen, might be the proudest woman in France."

"I am the proudest woman in the world," she said. "This year of trial
has proved my love a king. I have watched you toil and suffer for us in
uncomplaining silence, and the hopeful words which were ever on your
lips told how nobly you were fighting. O Claude, I need you! I need you
now more than ever! We each must help the other!" She clung trembling to
her lover's arm.

Claude braced himself.

"I must not let my gloomy spirit make my love's as heavy as its own. It
has passed, sweetheart I feel strong again; and to-morrow I shall be
ready to fight the battle anew."

As they walked back in the darkness Claude stumbled, and would have
fallen, but that Marguerite's arm held him up.

"How strong you are become, my darling!" he said tenderly. "Had I a
sword on shore I would teach you to wield it; and truly, I think, when
we get home again another Joan of Arc would b