over the solitary chair, and a pile of cushions formed another seat.
With elaborate courtesy he handed Miss Rosey to the chair. He looked
pale and weak, though the gravity of the attack had evidently passed.
Yet he persisted in remaining standing. "If I sit," he explained with a
gesture, "I shall again disgrace myself by sleeping in Mademoiselle's
presence. Yes! I shall sleep--I shall dream--and wake to find her
gone!"

More embarrassed by his recovery than when he was lying helplessly
before her, she said hesitatingly that she was glad he was better, and
that she hoped he liked the broth.

"It was manna from heaven, Mademoiselle. See, I have taken it
all--every precious drop. What else could I have done for
Mademoiselle's kindness?"

He showed her the empty bowl. A swift conviction came upon her that the
man had been suffering from want of food. The thought restored her
self-possession even while it brought the tears to her eyes. "I wish
you would let me speak to father--or some one," she said impulsively,
and stopped.

A quick and half insane gleam of terror and suspicion lit up his deep
eyes. "For what, Mademoiselle! For an accident--that is
nothing--absolutely nothing, for I am strong and well now--see!" he
said tremblingly. "Or for a whim--for a folly you may say, that they
will misunderstand. No, Mademoiselle is good, is wise. She will say to
herself, 'I understand, my friend Monsieur de Ferrieres for the moment
has a secret. He would seem poor, he would take the role of artisan, he
would shut himself up in these walls--perhaps I may guess why, but it
is his secret. I think of it no more.'" He caught her hand in his with
a gesture that he would have made one of gallantry, but that in its
tremulous intensity became a piteous supplication.

"I have said nothing, and will say nothing, if you wish it," said Rosey
hastily; "but others may find out how you live here. This is not fit
work for you. You seem to be a--a gentleman. You ought to be a lawyer,
or a doctor, or in a bank," she continued timidly, with a vague
enumeration of the prevailing degrees of local gentility.

He dropped her hand. "Ah! does not Mademoiselle comprehend that it is
_because_ I am a gentleman that there is nothing between it and this?
Look!" he continued almost fiercely. "What if I told you it is the
lawyer, it is the doctor, it is the banker that brings me, a gentleman,
to this, eh? Ah, bah! What do I say? This is honest, what I do! B