whispering shadows
and went to the Virgin's shrine, where she knelt and tried to pray. The
candles sputtered before her, and she shut her eyes tight, which made
colored patterns come and go behind the lids, fascinating geometrical
figures that changed and faded and grew stronger. And suddenly, inside a
widening green circle, she saw a face, the face of a young man with
laughing gray eyes, and her heart beat with joy. She loved him, she loved
him!--that was her secret and the cause of her unhappiness, for she must
hide her love, especially from him; she must give him some cold word, some
evasive reason, not the real one, when he should come presently for his
answer. Ah, that was the great fact, he was coming for his answer--he, her
hero man, her impetuous American with the name she liked so much, Lloyd
Kittredge--how often she had murmured that name in her lonely hours!--_he_
would be here shortly for his answer.

And alas! she must say "No" to him, she must give him pain; she could not
hope to make him understand--how could anyone understand?--and then,
perhaps, he would misjudge her, perhaps he would leave her in anger and not
come back any more. Not come back any more! The thought cut with a sharp
pang, and in her distress she moved her lips silently in the familiar
prayer printed before her:

O Marie, souvenez vous du moment supreme ou Jesus votre divin Fils,
expirant sur la croix, nous confia a votre maternelle solicitude.

Her thoughts wandered from the page and flew back to her lover; Why was he
so impatient? Why was he not willing to let their friendship go on as it
had been all these months? Why must he ask this inconceivable question and
insist on having an answer? His wife! Her cheeks flamed at the word and her
heart throbbed wildly. His wife! How wonderful that he should have chosen
her, so poor and obscure, for such an honor, the highest he could pay a
woman! Whatever happened she would at least have this beautiful memory to
comfort her loneliness and sorrow.

A descending step on the tower stairs broke in upon her meditations, and
she rose quickly from her knees. The sacristan had finished his rounds and
was coming to close the outer doors. It was time for her to go. And, with a
glance at her hair in a little glass and a touch to her hat, she went out
into the garden back of Notre-Dame, where she knew her lover would be
waiting. There he was, strolling along the graveled walk near the fountain,
swi