a love that was unselfish, and one that was heroic.

A few moments, and Cecil returned.

"Rake," he said rapidly, in the French he habitually used, "saddle my
horse and your own. I am allowed to choose one of you to accompany me."

Rake, in paradise, and the envied of every man in the squadron, turned
to his work--with him a task of scarce more than a second; and Cecil
approached his little Friend of the Flag.

"My child, I cannot attempt to thank you. But for you, I should have
been tempted to send my lance through my own heart."

"Keep its lunge for the Arbicos, mon ami," said Cigarette brusquely--the
more brusquely because that new and bitter pang was on her. "As for me,
I want no thanks."

"No; you are too generous. But not the less do I wish I could render
them more worthily than by words. If I live, I will try; if not, keep
this in my memory. It is the only thing I have."

He put into her hand the ring she had seen in the little bon-bon box; a
ring of his mother's that he had saved when he had parted with all else,
and had put off his hand and into the box of Petite Reine's gift the day
he entered the Algerian army.

Cigarette flushed scarlet with passions he could not understand, and she
could not have disentangled.

"The ring of your mistress! Not for me, if I know it! Do you think I
want to be paid?"

"The ring was my mother's," he answered her simply. "And I offer it only
as souvenir."

She lost all her color and all her fiery wrath; his grave and gentle
courtesy always strangely stilled and rebuked her; but she raised the
ring off the ground where she had flung it, and placed it back in his
hand.

"If so, still less should you part with it. Keep it; it will bring you
happiness one day. As for me, I have done nothing!"

"You have done what I value the more for that noble disclaimer. May I
thank you thus, Little One?"

He stooped and kissed her; a kiss that the lips of a man will always
give to the bright, youthful lips of a women, but a kiss, as she knew
well, without passion, even without tenderness in it.

With a sudden impetuous movement, with a shyness and a refusal that
had never been in her before, she wrested herself from him, her face
burning, her heart panting, and plunged away from him into the depth of
the shadow; and he never sought to follow her, but threw himself into
saddle as his gray was brought up. Another instant, and, armed to
the teeth, he rode out of the camp into the d