admitted
that she was the author of both the words and the music. In her
voluntary retirement she had cultivated gifts that would have lain
fallow had she kept her place in the world.

Old Peter waited on us, as usual, at supper. There was something in
his response to my inquiry after his health which was more cheerful
than I had seen in him for years. I was not surprised, therefore, when
Francezka whispered to me, during Peter's absence from the room, that
poor little Lisa had returned.

Madame Chambellan was still of Francezka's household, but being, as I
think, incurably lazy, she kept her room and asked to be excused to
us, which we cheerfully granted.

When supper was over it was still warm enough to go out of doors, so
Francezka led the way to that well-remembered spot, the Italian
garden, and there, under the solemn yew trees, and looking down upon
the somber lake, dark, although the twilight was still mellow, we sat
and talked with the joy and peace of friends after a long separation.
Bold, of course, was of the party, and continued to honor me with his
friendship.

The first thing Count Saxe asked Francezka was, if she had any news of
Gaston. Francezka shook her head.

"But I have not given up hope; if I did I should throw myself into the
lake. And, after all, what does any search amount to, after my
discovery that my lord was alive and present in a place which had been
searched a dozen times in three months? Could any wife give up hope
after that? No! All I can do is to wait and watch and hope and pray
and work, for work I do, that when my husband returns he may find a
wife to his taste. I read somewhere lately that Hesiod, an old Greek,
said that the gods have placed labor as a sentinel over virtue. As
long as I work and stay quietly at home no one can slander me, no one
can accuse me, and I can live my own life of work, study and prayer."

Count Saxe looked at her in silent admiration. There was something
heroic in the steady fight this woman was making for her love. She
told us that she still spent a great part of her income in promoting
the search for Gaston Cheverny. She acknowledged that much of this
money went to deceitful and designing persons, who professed to have
information to sell which was no information at all, but as Francezka
said coolly, she would rather spend her fortune in that way than in
any other. Then she told us about Lisa's return.

"Jacques Haret, it seems, had deserted her