to burn for that, and the
good Father Anton would have a word to say if he knew! And best of
all--there was Marie-Louise. There was none, none _pardieu_, in the
whole wide sweep of France like Marie-Louise, with her eyes like stars,
and her face fresh as the morning breeze across the sparkling waters,
and a figure so beautiful, so lithe, so strong! What charm to see
those young arms on the oars, the bosom heave, to feel the boat bound
forward under the stroke, and hear her laugh ring out with the pure joy
of life!

"Marie-Louise!" cried Jean Laparde aloud--and the wind seemed to catch
up the words and echo them in a triumphant shout: "Marie-Louise!"

It was gone--that mood. And now, with the village well behind him, the
lights blotted out and seeming to have left him isolated even from
human proximity, another came--and he stood still--and this time it was
the storm. And something within him, without will or volition of his,
spontaneous, leapt out in consonance with the wild grandeur of the
night to revel in it, atune with the Titanic magnificence of the
spectacle, as one who gazes upon a splendid canvas and, innate in
appreciation, is lost in the conception to which the master brush has
given life. And so he stood there for a long time immovable, his
shoulders thrust a little forward, the rain streaming from his face,
his eyes afire, wrapt, lost in the clashing elements before him--and
fancy came. The play of the lightning was more vivid now, and the
coast line took on changing shapes, as though seeking by new and
swiftly conceived formations to foil and combat and thrust back and
parry the furious attack of the breakers that hurled themselves onward
in their mad, never-ending charge; while behind again, in sudden
apparitions, like spectre battalions massed in reserve, the white
cottages appeared for an instant, and then, as though seeking a more
strategic position, vanished utterly, until a flame-tongue crackling
across the heavens searched them out again, laying their position bare
once more; and the headlands, vanguards where the fight was hottest,
were lost in a smother of spume and spray, like the smoke of battle
swirling over them--and it was battle, and the thunder of the surf was
the thunder of belching cannon, and the shriek of the wind was the
shriek of hurtling shells. It was battle--and some consciousness
inborn in Jean Laparde awakened and filled him with understanding, and
in the terror; and di