his knees this time, his
arms clasping the delicate form that swayed like the slender stems of
narcissi in the breeze.

"Oh! you must go out of Paris at once--at once," she said through sobs
which no longer would be kept back.

"He'll return--I know that he will return--and you will not be safe
until you are back in England."

But he could not think of himself or of anything in the future. He had
forgotten Heron, Paris, the world; he could only think of her.

"I owe my life to you!" he murmured. "Oh, how beautiful you are--how
brave! How I love you!"

It seemed that he had always loved her, from the moment that first
in his boyish heart he had set up an ideal to worship, and then, last
night, in the box of the theatre--he had his back turned toward the
stage, and was ready to go--her voice had called him back; it had held
him spellbound; her voice, and also her eyes.... He did not know then
that it was Love which then and there had enchained him. Oh, how foolish
he had been! for now he knew that he had loved her with all his might,
with all his soul, from the very instant that his eyes had rested upon
her.

He babbled along--incoherently--in the intervals of covering her hands
and the hem of her gown with kisses. He stooped right down to the ground
and kissed the arch of her instep; he had become a devotee worshipping
at the shrine of his saint, who had performed a great and a wonderful
miracle.

Armand the idealist had found his ideal in a woman. That was the great
miracle which the woman herself had performed for him. He found in her
all that he had admired most, all that he had admired in the leader
who hitherto had been the only personification of his ideal. But Jeanne
possessed all those qualities which had roused his enthusiasm in the
noble hero whom he revered. Her pluck, her ingenuity, her calm devotion
which had averted the threatened danger from him!

What had he done that she should have risked her own sweet life for his
sake?

But Jeanne did not know. She could not tell. Her nerves now were
somewhat unstrung, and the tears that always came so readily to her eyes
flowed quite unchecked. She could not very well move, for he held her
knees imprisoned in his arms, but she was quite content to remain like
this, and to yield her hands to him so that he might cover them with
kisses.

Indeed, she did not know at what precise moment love for him had been
born in her heart. Last night, perhaps... she co