Do
you think it matters as I'm not going to bed? I really am tired."

"No, dear," he said. "_Le bon Dieu_ understands."

She moved her head a little. "Are you going to say yours, Bertie?"

"Perhaps, little one."

"Oh, that's all right," she said comfortably. "Good-night!"

"Good-night, _cherie_!"

His lips were close, so close to her forehead. He could even feel
her hair blow lightly against his face. But he remained rigid as a
sentry--watchful and silent and still.

Once during that long night she stirred in her sleep--stirred and nestled
closer to him with an inarticulate murmur; and he turned, moving for the
first time, and gathered her into his arms, holding her there like an
infant against his breast. Thereafter she slept a calm, unbroken slumber,
serenely unconscious of him and serenely content.

And the man sat motionless, with eyes wide to the darkness, grave and
reverent as the eyes of a warrior keeping his vigil on the eve of
knighthood. But his heart throbbed all night long like the beat of a drum
that calls men into action.

CHAPTER VII

IN THE CAUSE OF A WOMAN

To say that Mademoiselle Gautier was extremely anxious over her young
charge's disappearance would be to state the case with ludicrous
mildness. She was frantic, she was frenzied with anxiety.

All the evening and half the night she was literally dancing with
suspense, intermingled with fits of despair that reduced her, while they
lasted, to a state of absolute collapse. Before midnight all Valpre knew
that the little English _demoiselle_ was missing, and all Valpre scoured
the shore for her in vain. Some of the fishermen put out in boats and
continued the search by moonlight as near the rocks as it was possible to
go. But all to no purpose.

When the moon went down, they abandoned the quest; but at dawn, when the
tide was on the turn, they were out again, searching, searching for a
white, drowned face and a mass of red-brown hair. But the sea only
laughed in the sunlight and revealed no secrets.

Mademoiselle was quite prostrate by that time. She lay in a darkened room
with her head swathed in a black shawl, and called upon all the holy
saints to witness that she had always predicted this disaster.

Chris's two young brothers slept fitfully, waking now and then to assure
each other uneasily that of course she would turn up sooner or later
sound in wind and limb; she always did.

Noel, the younger, who was more or less in