icks, I am superstitious, for I was afraid it was what my aunt
calls a 'wraith,' and I trembled and caught his hands, thinking he
would melt away into the air. Now you are laughing, Babache, but
remember, I am not incredulous like you French--I am Scotch and
Spanish--"

"But Gaston did not melt away. He grasped your hands--and--"

Francezka again hid her face upon the dog's sleek head, and with her
face so averted continued--

"He took my book away from me, and although I protested, he read some
things I had written in my Petrarch--some things meant for no eye but
my own--Gaston read them and interpreted them. He told me he had not
meant to make known his love to me until he had achieved something to
put us more on an equality, so he said--foolishly, I think--for it is
not what a man does so much as what he is; and he was looking forward
to promotion in this campaign,--and thinking then--then he could
speak--when, seeing me so moved, and reading what I had written in my
Petrarch, and all--I know not how it came about--but we were married
secretly before twenty-four hours."

There was a long pause here. Francezka passed the silky ears of the
dog through her fingers, and looked into his tawny eyes, but her
thoughts were evidently in the happy past. There was no sound in the
still May evening, except the faint, mysterious moan of the lake.

"Truly," she said, after a while, "I know not how our marriage came
about, except that we loved each other and sought an excuse to bind
us, one to the other. The excuse was, that my aunt was going to
Scotland at once, and I was to be left alone--for Madame Chambellan is
scarcely a guardian for me. Gaston and I had already determined to be
married, before we spoke to my aunt. She, with her usual keen sense,
reminded us of the threat that had come, no one knew whence, or how,
of any roof that Gaston might have, being burned to the ground--and
also, of the many chateaux and houses belonging to French people which
had been burned. She suggested, therefore, for the present, that the
marriage be kept secret--if we were bent on being married--as Gaston
would be leaving in a few days, and his return would be uncertain. To
that we agreed--Gaston calling himself a blockhead for not thinking of
the usefulness of secrecy for a time. We were married in the village
church by Pere Benart, at sunset. No one was present, except my aunt,
Madame Chambellan, and old Peter. I made a fete for the villag