reams. She
nestled closer to him; at his bidding her weeping died down and ceased.

"There, Cecile, you will give me the key now?" he begged.

She glanced up at him shyly through wet lashes--as peeps the sun through
April clouds.

"There is nothing I will not do for you, Caron," she murmured. "See, I
will even help you to play the traitor on my uncle. For you love me a
little, cher Caron, is it not so?"

He felt himself grow cold from head to foot, and he grew sick at the
thought that by the indiscretion of his clumsy sympathy he had brought
this down upon his luckless head. Mechanically his arm relaxed the hold
of her waist and fell away. Instinctively she apprehended that all was
not as she had thought. She turned on the seat to face him squarely, and
caught something of the dismay in his glance of the loathing almost (for
what is more loathsome to a man than to be wooed by a woman he desires
not?) Gradually, inch by inch, she drew away from him, ever facing him,
and her eyes ever on his, as if fascinated by the horror of what she
saw. Thus until the extremity of the settle permitted her to go no
farther. She started, then her glance flickered down, and she gave a
sudden gasp of passion. Simultaneously the key rang on the boards at
Caron's feet angrily flung there by Cecile.

"Go!" she exclaimed, in a suffocating voice, "and never let me see your
face again."

For a second or two he sat quite still, his eyes observing her with a
look of ineffable pity, which might have increased her disorder had she
perceived it. Then slowly he stooped, and took up the key.

He rose from the settle, and without a word--for words he realised,
could do no more than heighten the tragic banality of the situation--he
went to the door, unlocked it, and passed out.

Huddled in her corner sat Cecile, listening until his steps had died
away on the stairs. Then she cast herself prone upon the settle, and in
a frenzy of sobs and tears she vented some of the rage and shame that
were distracting her.

CHAPTER XX. THE GRATITUDE OF OMBREVAL

What La Boulaye may have lacked in knowledge of woman's ways he made up
for by his knowledge of Cecile, and from this he apprehended that there
was no time to be lost if he would carry out his purpose. Touching her
dismissal of him, he permitted himself no illusions. He rated it at its
true value. He saw in it no sign of relenting of generosity, but only
a desire to put an end to the shame wh