ith that hard irony in her voice,
which had, no doubt, penetrated thither from the soul of a mother who
had played no small part in the Revolution. "The guest-chamber, one may
say, provided that Monsieur le Marquis will sleep on the floor in the
drawing-room, or in the straw down below in the stable."

The Abbe threw open the shutter of this room also and stood meekly
eyeing Marie with a tolerant smile. The room was almost bare
of furniture. A bed such as peasants sleep on; a few chairs; a
dressing-table tottering against the window-breast, and modestly
screened in one corner, the diminutive washing-stand still used in
southern France. For Gemosac had been sacked and the furniture built
up into a bonfire when Marie was a little child and the Abbe Touvent a
fat-faced timorous boy at the Seminary of Saintes.

"Beyond is Mademoiselle's room," concluded Marie, curtly. She looked
round her and shrugged her shoulders with a grim laugh which made the
Abbe shrink. They looked at each other in silence, the two participants
in the secret of Gemosac; for Marie's husband, the third who had access
to the chateau, did not count. He was a shambling, silent man, now
working in the vineyard beneath the walls. He always did what his wife
told him, without comment or enthusiasm, knowing well that he would be
blamed for doing it badly.

The Abbe had visited the rooms once before, during a brief passage of
the Marquis, soon after his wife's death in Paris. But, as a rule, only
Marie and Jean had access to the apartment. He looked round with an eye
always ready with the tear of sympathy; for he was a soft-hearted man.
Then he looked at Marie again, shamefacedly. But she, divining his
thoughts, shrugged her shoulders.

"Ah, bah!" she said, "one must take the world as it is. And Monsieur le
Marquis is only a man. One sees that, when he announces his return on
washing-day, and brings a guest. You must write to him, that is all,
and tell him that with time I can arrange, but not in a hurry like
this. Where is the furniture to come from? A chair or two from the
banquet-hall; I can lend a bed which Jean can carry in after dark so
that no one knows; you have the jug and basin you bought when the Bishop
came, that you must lend--" She broke off and ran to the window. "Good,"
she cried, in a despairing voice, "I hear a carriage coming up the hill.
Run, Monsieur l'Abbe--run to the gate and bolt it. Guest or no guest,
they cannot see the rooms like