hing for you, you need not fear to make use of me. I, and I
only, perhaps, am above the law, since there is no King now."

There was such a ring of sincerity in the words that Sister Agathe
hastily pointed to a chair as if to bid their guest be seated. Sister
Agathe came of the house of Langeais; her manner seemed to indicate that
once she had been familiar with brilliant scenes, and had breathed the
air of courts. The stranger seemed half pleased, half distressed when
he understood her invitation; he waited to sit down until the women were
seated.

"You are giving shelter to a reverend father who refused to take the
oath, and escaped the massacres at the Carmelites by a miracle----"

"_Hosanna_!" Sister Agathe exclaimed eagerly, interrupting the stranger,
while she watched him with curious eyes.

"That is not the name, I think," he said.

"But, monsieur," Sister Marthe broke in quickly, "we have no priest
here, and----"

"In that case you should be more careful and on your guard," he answered
gently, stretching out his hand for a breviary that lay on the table. "I
do not think that you know Latin, and----"

He stopped; for, at the sight of the great emotion in the faces of
the two poor nuns, he was afraid that he had gone too far. They were
trembling, and the tears stood in their eyes.

"Do not fear," he said frankly. "I know your names and the name of
your guest. Three days ago I heard of your distress and devotion to the
venerable Abbe de----"

"Hush!" Sister Agathe cried, in the simplicity of her heart, as she laid
her finger on her lips.

"You see, Sisters, that if I had conceived the horrible idea of
betraying you, I could have given you up already, more than once----"

At the words the priest came out of his hiding-place and stood in their
midst.

"I cannot believe, monsieur, that you can be one of our persecutors," he
said, addressing the stranger, "and I trust you. What do you want with
me?"

The priest's holy confidence, the nobleness expressed in every line in
his face, would have disarmed a murderer. For a moment the mysterious
stranger, who had brought an element of excitement into lives of misery
and resignation, gazed at the little group; then he turned to the priest
and said, as if making a confidence, "Father, I came to beg you to
celebrate a mass for the repose of the soul of--of--of an august
personage whose body will never rest in consecrated earth----"

Involuntarily the abbe shive