her villa, some twenty kilometres below Pont du
Sable--Germaine with her trim, lithe figure and merry brown eyes, eyes
that can become in a flash as calm and serious as the cure's, and in
turn with her moods (for Germaine is a pretty collection of moods) gleam
with the impulsive devilry of a _gamine_; Germaine, who teases an old
vagabond painter like myself, by daubing a purple moon in the middle of
my morning sketch, adds a dab on my nose when I protest, and the next
instant embraces me, and begs my forgiveness.

I cannot conceive of anyone not forgiving Germaine, beneath whose firm
and delicate beauty lies her warm heart, as golden in quality as the
cure's.

Ah! It is gay enough in midsummer with Germaine and such other good
Bohemians as Alice de Breville, Tanrade, and his reverence to cheer my
house abandoned by the marsh.

I heard the yellow car tearing back to Pont du Sable late that night. It
slowed down as it neared my walled domain, and with a wrenching grunt
stopped in front of my gate. The next instant the door of my den opened
and in rushed the cure.

"All of us to luncheon to-morrow at The Three Wolves!" he cried,
flinging his hat on the floor; then bending, with a grin of
satisfaction over the lamp chimney, he kindled the end of a fat
cigarette he had rolled in the dark. His eyes were snapping, while the
corners of his humorous mouth twitched in a satisfied smile. He strode
up and down the room for some moments, his hands clasped behind him, his
strong, sun-tanned face beaming in the glow of the shaded lamplight,
while he listened to my delight over the pleasant news he had brought.

"Ah! They are good to me, these children of mine," he declared with
enthusiasm. "Germaine tells me there is a surprise in store for me and
that I am not to know until to-morrow, at luncheon. Beyond that, she
would tell me nothing, the little minx, except that I managed to make
her confess that Alice was in the secret."

He glanced at his watch, "Ah!" he ejaculated, "I must be getting to bed;
you, too, my old one, for we must get an early start in the morning, if
we are to reach The Three Wolves by noon." He recovered his hat from the
floor, straightened up, brushed the cigarette ashes from the breast of
his long black soutane, shiny from wear, and held out his strong hand.

"Sleep well," he counselled, "for to-morrow we shall be _en fete_."

Then he swung open my door and passed out into the night, whistling as
he cros