said: 'Citizen Carteaux is right. Take him. We lose time.'

"On this my father turned again and saw me as I cried out, 'Oh, my God!
My father!' In the uproar no one heard me. At the door on the left, it
was, as they struck, he called out--oh, very loud: 'Yvonne! Yvonne! God
keep thee!' Oh, mother, I saw it--I saw it." For a moment he was unable
to go on.

"I got out of the place somehow. When safe amid the thousands in the
square I stood still and got grip of myself. A woman beside me said,
'They threw them down into the Tour de la Glaciere.'"

"Ah!" exclaimed the Vicomtesse.

"It was dusk outside when all was over. I waited long, but about nine
they came out. The people scattered. I went after the man Carteaux. He
was all night in cafes, never alone--never once alone. I saw him again,
at morning, near by on horseback; then I lost him. Ah, my God! mother,
why would you make me tell it?"

"Because, Rene, it is often with you, and because it is not well for a
young man to keep before him unendingly a sorrow of the past. I wanted
you to feel that now I share with you what I can see so often has
possession of you. Do not pity me because I know all. Now you shall see
how bravely I will carry it." She took his hand. "It will be hard, but
wise to put it aside. Pray God, my son, this night to help you not to
forget, but not hurtfully to remember."

He said nothing, but looked up at the darkened heavens under which the
night-hawks were screaming in their circling flight.

"Is there more, my son?"

[Illustration: "As they struck, he called out 'Yvonne!'"]

"Yes, but it is so hopeless. Let us leave it, mother."

"No. I said we must clear our souls. Leave nothing untold. What is it?"

"The man Carteaux! If it had not been for you, I should never have left
France until I found that man."

"I thought as much. Had you told me, I should have stayed, or begged my
bread in England while you were gone."

"I could not leave you then, and now--now the sea lies between me and
him, and the craving that has been with me when I went to sleep and at
waking I must put away. I will try." As he spoke, he took her hand.

A rigid Huguenot, she had it on her lips to speak of the forgiving of
enemies. Generations of belief in the creed of the sword, her love, her
sense of the insult of this death, of a sudden mocked her purpose. She
was stirred as he was by a passion for vengeance. She flung his hand
aside, rose, and walked swiftly abo