's. He was burned at the stake for his faith."

"Ah, cruel men! How strange! Here, I see, is a psalm for one about to
die on the scaffold."

"Yes--yes," said the vicomtesse.

"What strange stories it seems to tell! It was, I see, printed long
ago."

"Yes, two years before the massacre of St. Bartholomew."

"And here is one for men about to go into battle for God and their
faith." The hostess looked up. Her guest's face was stern, stirred as
with some deep emotion, her eyes full of tears.

She had been thinking, as she lay still and listened to Mary Swanwick's
comments, of death for a man's personal belief, for his faith, of death
with honor. She was experiencing, of a sudden, that failure of
self-control which is the sure result of bodily weakness; for, with the
remembrance of her husband's murder, she recalled, amid natural feelings
of sorrow, the shame with which she had heard of his failure at once to
declare his rank when facing death. For a moment she lay still. "I shall
be better in a moment," she said.

"Ah, what have I done?" cried Mrs. Swanwick, distressed, as she took the
thin, white hand in hers. "Forgive me."

"You have done nothing--nothing. Some day I shall tell you; not now."
She controlled herself with effectual effort, shocked at her own
weakness, and surprised that it had betrayed her into emotion produced
by the too vivid realization of a terrible past. She never did tell more
of it, but the story came to the Quaker dame on a far-off day and from a
less reserved personage.

At this moment Margaret entered. Few things escaped the watchful eyes
that were blue to-day and gray to-morrow, like the waters of the broad
river that flowed by her home. No sign betrayed her surprise at the
evident tremor of the chin muscles, the quick movement of the
handkerchief from the eyes, tear-laden, the mother's look of sympathy as
she dropped the hand left passive in her grasp. Not in vain had been the
girl's training in the ways of Friends. Elsewhere she was more given to
set free her face to express what she felt, but at home and among those
of the Society of Friends she yielded with the imitativeness of youth to
the not unwholesome discipline of her elders. She quietly announced Aunt
Gainor as waiting below stairs.

"Wilt thou see her?" said Mrs. Swanwick.

"Certainly; I have much to thank her for. And tell my son not to come up
as yet," for, being Saturday, it was a half-holiday from noon, and
having be