end to the wounded stranger,
but to lodge him in the chancel. 'Only this was wanting,' was the first
thought in her desolation, for this had been her own most cherished
resort. Either the _bise_, or fear of a haunted spot, or both, had
led to the nailing up of boards over the dividing screen, so that the
chancel was entirely concealed from the church; and no one ever thought
of setting foot there till Eustacie, whose Catholic reverence was
indestructible, even when she was only half sure that it was not worse
than a foible, had stolen down thither, grieved at its utter desolation,
and with fond and careful hands had cleansed it, and amended the ruin
so far as she might. She had no other place where she was sure of being
uninterrupted; and here had been her oratory, where she daily prayed,
and often came to hide her tears and rally her spirits through that long
attendance on her fatherly friend. It had been a stolen pleasure. Her
reverent work there, if once observed, would have been treated as rank
idolatry; and it was with consternation as well as grief that she found,
by the Captain's command, that this her sanctuary and refuge was to be
invaded by strange soldiers! Little did she think---!

And thus they sat, telling each other all, on the step of the ruined
chancel, among the lights and shadows of the apse. How unlike to stately
Louvre's halls of statuary and cabinets of porcelain, or the Arcadian
groves of Montpipeau! And yet how little they recked that they were in
a beleaguered fortress, in the midst of ruins, wounded sufferers all
around, themselves in hourly jeopardy. It was enough that they had one
another. They were so supremely happy that their minds unconsciously
gathered up those pale lights and dark fantastic shades as adjuncts of
their bliss.

CHAPTER XLIII. LE BAISER D'EUSTACIE

No pitying voice, no eye, affords
One tear to grace his obsequies.
--GRAY

Golden sunshine made rubies and sapphires of the fragments of glass in
the windows of Notre-Dame de l'Esperance, and lighted up the brown face
and earnest eyes of the little dark figure, who, with hands clasped
round her knees, sat gazing as if she could never gaze her fill, upon
the sleeping warrior beside whom she sat, his clear straight profile
like a cameo, both in chiseling and in colour, as it lay on the brown
cloak where he slept the profound sleep of content and of fatigue.

Neither she nor Phili