to come with you, and carry your cloak
and the umbrellas."

"You, indeed!" said Julie. "It would end, wouldn't it, in my carrying
you--besides the cloak and the umbrellas?"

Then she knelt down beside the child and took her in her arms.

"Do you love me, Therese?"

The child drew a long breath. With her little, twisted hands she stroked
the beautiful hair so close to her.

"Do you, Therese?"

A kiss fell on Julie's cheek.

"Ce soir, j'ai beaucoup prie la Sainte Vierge pour vous!" she said, in a
timid and hurried whisper.

Julie made no immediate reply. She rose from her knees, her hand still
clasped in that of the crippled girl.

"Did you put those pictures on my mantel-piece, Therese?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

The child hesitated.

"It does one good to look at them--n'est-ce pas?--when one is sad?"

"Why do you suppose I am sad?"

Therese was silent a moment; then she flung her little skeleton arms
round Julie, and Julie felt her crying.

"Well, I won't be sad any more," said Julie, comforting her. "When we're
all in Bruges together, you'll see."

And smiling at the child, she tucked her into her white bed and left
her.

Then from this exquisite and innocent affection she passed back into the
tumult of her own thoughts and plans. Through the restless night her
parents were often in her mind. She was the child of revolt, and as she
thought of the meeting before her she seemed to be but entering upon a
heritage inevitable from the beginning. A sense of enfranchisement, of
passionate enlargement, upheld her, as of a life coming to its fruit.

* * * * *

"Creil!"

A flashing vision of a station and its lights, and the Paris train
rushed on through cold showers of sleet and driving wind, a return of
winter in the heart of spring.

On they sped through the half-hour which still divided them from the
Gare du Nord. Julie, in her thick veil, sat motionless in her corner.
She was not conscious of any particular agitation. Her mind was strained
not to forget any of Warkworth's directions. She was to drive across
immediately to the Gare de Sceaux, in the Place Denfert-Rochereau, where
he would meet her. They were to dine at an obscure inn near the station,
and go down by the last train to the little town in the wooded valley of
the Bievre, where they were to stay.

She had her luggage with her in the carriage. There would be no
custom-house delays.

Ah, the lights of Paris b