n spoken of it?"

"Oh, no. He always respects my wishes, when he knows them. But he does
not seem to have any instinctive knowledge of them. He often troubles
me by not knowing what I wish."

"In short, Madame, Gaston Cheverny has not second sight, as the
Kirkpatricks have."

Francezka smiled a little at this, but I saw that her uneasiness was
deeply rooted, and I had not succeeded in tearing it away.

Just then there was a shout of laughter, the winding of a hunting
horn, echoing afar, a sound of scurrying feet up the great stairway.
Involuntarily we both turned toward the window looking out upon it,
which the reddening sun made bright. Madame Fontange, one of the
beauties of the court, rushed up the stairway laughing and disheveled,
her hoop awry, and her satin robe half torn off her back by a rascal
of a little page, who had seized her and who was calling loudly for
Monsieur Cheverny. Gaston Cheverny, wearing his hunting dress, his
horn in his hand, was close behind, covering the great steps two at a
time. As he dashed past the window and his laughing face flashed by in
the blaze of the setting sun, I saw, as I am a living man, Regnard
Cheverny's soul shining out of Gaston Cheverny's eyes. Francezka so
expressed it, and I can not express it any better or any differently.
I drew back from the window into the room, and avoided Francezka's
searching glance.

"You have seen it, I see," she said calmly. "Do you wonder that I am a
wretched woman?"

I gathered my wits about me, dismissed the strange impression I had
got, and said, rising:

"Madame, you have, after long waiting, had the husband of your first
youth restored to you. He is not precisely what he was when you lost
him. All men change, and most women. You, perhaps, are the same, but
Gaston Cheverny is not. He is, however, devoted to you, high-minded,
honorable, of the same strong intelligence, but with seven years of
hardship and adventure behind him. All that you have told me is
fanciful. Dismiss it, I beg of you, from your mind. Let not a dead dog
and a look of your husband's eye, and an inconsiderate fit of laughter
wreck your happiness."

"Do you believe all you say, Babache?" she asked, coming up to me with
a world of entreaty in her eyes.

I am not a gallant, but I am enough of a gentleman to tell a lie, if
necessary, to a lady, and to swear to it until I am black in the face;
so I said:

"I swear it to you, Madame, on my sacred honor." And all