the calabozo."

"Ah," said Nick, slyly, "I know. He has tasted freedom, Monsieur, and
Madame la Vicomtesse will be in command again."

I flushed. Nick could be very exasperating.

"You must not mind him, Monsieur," I said.

"I do not mind him," answered Monsieur de St. Gre, laughing in spite of
himself. "He is a sad rogue. As for Helene--"

"I shall not know how to thank the Vicomtesse," I said. "She has done me
the greatest service one person can do another."

"Helene is a good woman," answered Monsieur de St. Gre, simply. "She is
more than that, she is a wonderful woman. I remember telling you of her
once. I little thought then that she would ever come to us."

He turned to me. "Dr. Perrin will be here this afternoon, David, and he
will have you dressed. Between five and six if all goes well, we shall
start for Les Iles. And in the meantime, gentlemen," he added with a
stateliness that was natural to him, "I have business which takes me
to-day to my brother-in-law's, Monsieur de Beausejour's."

Nick leaned over the gallery and watched meditatively his prospective
father-in-law leaving the court-yard.

"He got me out of a devilish bad scrape," he said.

"How was that?" I asked listlessly.

"That fat little Baron, the Governor, was for deporting me for running
past the sentry and giving him all the trouble I did. It seems that the
Vicomtesse promised to explain matters in a note which she wrote, and
never did explain. She was here with you, and a lot she cared about
anything else. Lucky that Monsieur de St. Gre came back. Now his
Excellency graciously allows me to stay here, if I behave myself, until I
get married."

I do not know how I spent the rest of the day. It passed, somehow. If I
had had the strength then, I believe I should have fled. I was to see
her again, to feel her near me, to hear her voice. During the weeks that
had gone by I had schooled myself, in a sense, to the inevitable. I had
not let my mind dwell upon my visit to Les Iles, and now I was face to
face with the struggle for which I felt I had not the strength. I had
fought one battle,--I knew that a fiercer battle was to come.

In due time the doctor arrived, and while he prepared me for my
departure, the little man sought, with misplaced kindness, to raise my
spirits. Was not Monsieur going to the country, to a paradise?
Monsieur--so Dr. Perrin had noticed--had a turn for philosophy. Could
two more able and brilliant conversationali