my betrothed. Come then to me. Let the blue sky, with all its
stars, be witness of this taking of my soul to thine; and let our first
embrace be mingled with that firmament."

Deruchette arose, and remained an instant motionless, looking straight
before her, doubtless in another's eyes. Then, with slow steps, with
head erect, her arms drooping, but with the fingers of her hands wide
apart, like one who leans on some unseen support, she advanced towards
the trees, and was out of sight.

A moment afterwards, instead of the one shadow upon the gravelled walk,
there were two. They mingled together. Gilliatt saw at his feet the
embrace of those two shadows.

In certain moments of crisis, time flows from us as his sands from the
hour-glass, and we have no feeling of his flight. That pair on the one
hand, who were ignorant of the presence of a witness, and saw him not;
on the other, that witness of their joy who could not see them, but who
knew of their presence--how many minutes did they remain thus in that
mysterious suspension of themselves? It would be impossible to say.
Suddenly a noise burst forth at a distance. A voice was heard crying
"Help!" and the harbour bell began to sound. It is probable that in
those celestial transports of delight they heard no echo of that tumult.

The bell continued to ring. Any one who had sought Gilliatt then in the
angle of the wall would have found him no longer there.

BOOK II

GRATITUDE AND DESPOTISM

I

JOY SURROUNDED BY TORTURES

Mess Lethierry pulled the bell furiously, then stopped abruptly. A man
had just turned the corner of the quay. It was Gilliatt.

Lethierry ran towards him, or rather flung himself upon him; seized his
hand between his own, and looked him in the face for a moment, silent.
It was the silence of an explosion struggling to find an issue.

Then pulling and shaking him with violence, and squeezing him in his
arms, he compelled him to enter the lower room of the Bravees, pushed
back with his heel the door which had remained half opened, sat down, or
sank into a chair beside a great table lighted by the moon, the
reflection of which gave a vague pallor to Gilliatt's face, and with a
voice of intermingled laughter and tears, cried:

"Ah! my son; my player of the bagpipe! I knew well that it was you. The
sloop, _parbleu_! Tell me the story. You went there, then. Why, they
would have burnt you a hundred years ago! It is magic! There isn't a