of all shrubs and flowers.

CHAPTER XIV. "TO UNPATHED WATERS, UNDREAMED SHORES"

Monsieur and Madame de St. Gre themselves came with me to my chamber off
the gallery, where everything was prepared for my arrival with the
most loving care,--Monsieur de St. Gre supplying many things from
his wardrobe which I lacked. And when I tried to thank them for their
kindness he laid his hand upon my shoulder.

"Tenez, mon ami," he said, "you got your illness by doing things for
other people. It is time other people did something for you."

Lindy brought me the daintiest of suppers, and I was left to my
meditations. Nick looked in at the door, and hinted darkly that I had to
thank a certain tyrant for my abandonment. I called to him, but he paid
no heed, and I heard him chuckling as he retreated along the gallery.
The journey, the excitement into which I had been plunged by the news I
had heard, brought on a languor, and I was between sleeping and waking
half the night. I slept to dream of her, of the Vicomte, her husband,
walking in his park or playing cards amidst a brilliant company in a
great candle-lit room like the drawing-room at Temple Bow. Doubt grew,
and sleep left me. She was free now, indeed, but was she any nearer
to me? Hope grew again,--why had she left me in New Orleans? She had
received a letter, and if she had cared she would not have remained. But
there was a detestable argument to fit that likewise, and in the light
of this argument it was most natural that she should return to Les Iles.
And who was I, David Ritchie, a lawyer of the little town of Louisville,
to aspire to the love of such a creature? Was it likely that Helene,
Vicomtesse d'Ivry-le-Tour, would think twice of me? The powers of
the world were making ready to crush the presumptuous France of the
Jacobins, and the France of King and Aristocracy would be restored.
Chateaux and lands would be hers again, and she would go back again to
that brilliant life among the great to which she was born, for which
nature had fitted her. Last of all was the thought of the Englishman
whom I resembled. She would go back to him.

Nick was the first in my room the next morning. He had risen early (so
he ingenuously informed me) because Antoinette had a habit of getting
up with the birds, and as I drank my coffee he was emphatic in his
denunciations of the customs of the country.

"It is a wonderful day, Davy," he cried; "you must hurry and get out.
Monsieur de