e de
Bailleul portraits hanging, pulled them down with his own hands, and
tore the frames of several apart. Their sides he attached as cross-bars
to others, by means of strings ravelled from the canvas of the
tapestries. The result was a makeshift for snowshoes. With these they
escaped across the ice to the park, unnoticed by their enemies, who, by
the lights in every part of the mansion, they could see were active and
uproarious.

When at last, arriving at the gate of a chateau miles onward toward
Paris they looked back they saw an immense blaze in the distance, and
the heavens aglare from east to west with the conflagration. But the
saving of Cyrene made up in Germain's heart for the loss of his mansion,
and he felt as if by that as he had taken a step towards redemption.

CHAPTER XLV

THE NECESSITIES OF CONDITION

All through the long illness of Cyrene, which followed the revolt at
Eaux Tranquilles, and especially after her first grief for the misguided
men who had fallen in the corridor, her heart dwelt with great intensity
on the destruction of her hope of a home. She recurred to it again and
again in her conversations with him, until he ventured to mention to her
the offer once made to him by Liancourt of the position of Commandant of
the cadet school on his estates.

"Could you retire thither," said he, looking into her eyes with emotion,
"away for ever from your friends, away from your rank, from the Court,
and all that is so brilliant and belongs to you, to live your life along
with a man of humble birth wholly unworthy of you? You speak of a quiet
hearth and of abandonment of the world, but could you make a sacrifice
so great as this?"

"Germain, love, do you not know me yet?" she answered, returning him a
look of affection which profoundly troubled him. He knelt and kissed her
hand in silence. "Is not love life itself?" she said, rising with
difficulty from her arm-chair. "Let us go without delay and obtain
permission," and, taking his hand, led him with steps slow and pitiably
uncertain into the presence of the Marechale.

Madame was seated alone, mumbling to the count of her rosary, but on
their appearance dropped it in her lap and resumed her usual bearing of
dignity.

"Grand-aunt," began the Baroness, "we have a great boon to ask of you."

"What is it, Baroness?" she said.

"Grand-aunt," Cyrene repeated falteringly, "have you ever known what it
is to love?"

The question astonished