then, would she say, when the truth came home to her? What shape
should I take in her eyes then? How should I be remembered through all
the years then?

Then? But now? What was she thinking now, at this moment as she stood
silent and absorbed near the stone seat, a shadowy figure with face
turned from me? Was she recalling the man's words, fitting them to the
facts and the past, adding this and that circumstance? Was she, though
she had rebuffed him in the body, collating, now he was gone, all that
he had said, and out of these scraps piecing together the damning truth?
Was she, for all that she had said, beginning to see me as I was? The
thought tortured me. I could brook uncertainty no longer. I went nearer
to her and touched her sleeve.

'Mademoiselle,' I said in a voice which sounded hoarse and unnatural
even in my own ears, 'do you believe this of me?'

She started violently, and turned.

'Pardon, Monsieur!' she murmured, passing her hand over her brow; 'I had
forgotten that you were here. Do I believe what?'

'What that man said of me,' I muttered.

'That!' she exclaimed. And then she stood a moment gazing at me in a
strange fashion. 'Do I believe that, Monsieur? But come, come!' she
continued impetuously. 'Come, and I will show you if I believe it. But
not here.'

She turned as she spoke, and led the way on the instant into the house
through the parlour door, which stood half open. The room inside was
pitch dark, but she took me fearlessly by the hand and led me quickly
through it, and along the passage, until we came to the cheerful
lighted hall, where a great fire burned on the hearth. All traces of the
soldiers' occupation had been swept away. But the room was empty.

She led me to the fire, and there in the full light, no longer a shadowy
creature, but red-lipped, brilliant, throbbing with life and beauty,
she stood opposite me--her eyes shining, her colour high, her breast
heaving.

'Do I believe it?' she said in a thrilling voice. 'I will tell you. M.
de Cocheforet's hiding-place is in the hut behind the fern-stack, two
furlongs beyond the village on the road to Auch. You know now what no
one else knows, he and I and Madame excepted. You hold in your hands his
life and my honour; and you know also, M. de Berault, whether I believe
that tale.'

'My God!' I cried. And I stood looking at her until something of the
horror in my eyes crept into hers, and she shuddered and stepped back
from me.

'W