the primroses within a
very small waistband and turned away.

"Will you give me those primroses, Mademoiselle?" asked Loo, without
moving; for, although she had turned to go, she had not gone.

She turned on her heel and looked at him, with demure surprise, and then
bent her head to look at the flowers at her own waist.

"They are mine," she answered, standing in that pretty attitude, her
hair half concealing her face. "I picked them myself."

"Two reasons why I want them."

"Ah! but," she said, with a suggestion of thoughtfulness, "one does not
always get what one wants. You ask a great deal, Monsieur."

"There is no limit to what I would ask, Mademoiselle."

She laughed gaily.

"If--" she inquired, with raised eyebrows.

"If I dared."

Again she looked at him with that little air of surprise.

"But I thought you were so brave?" she said. "So reckless of danger? A
brave man assuredly does not ask. He takes that which he would have."

It happened that she had clasped her hands behind her back, leaving the
primroses at her waist uncovered and half falling from the ribbon.

In a moment he had reached out his hand and taken them. She leapt back,
as if she feared that he might take more, and ran back toward the house,
placing a rough tangle of brier between herself and this robber. Her
laughing face looked at him through the brier.

"You have your primroses," she said, "but I did not give them to you.
You want too much, I think."

"I want what that ribbon binds," he answered. But she turned away and
ran toward the house, without waiting to hear.

CHAPTER XXXIII. DORMER COLVILLE IS BLIND

It was late when Dormer Colville reached the quiet sea-coast village of
Royan on the evening of his return to the west. He did not seek Mrs.
St. Pierre Lawrence until the luncheon hour next morning, when he was
informed that she was away from home.

"Madame has gone to Paris," the man said, who, with his wife, was left
in charge of the empty house. "It was a sudden resolution, one
must conclude," he added, darkly, "but Madame took no one into her
confidence. She received news by post, which must have brought about
this sudden decision."

Colville was intimately acquainted with his cousin's affairs; many
hazarded an opinion that, without the help of Madame St. Pierre
Lawrence, this rolling stone would have been bare enough. She had gone
to Paris for one of two reasons, he concluded. Either she had expected
hi