ark, very long ago--now it was daylight again, and
the sun was streaming into the room.

The chaste, sweet face was tired and weary and aged a little; but on
the lips, sensitive, delicate, making even more beautiful their
contour, was a brave, resolute little smile, as her eyes rested on the
small white bed, neatly made, unslept in. It was over now, the fight
that had been so hard and so cruel to fight; and she needed only the
courage to go on to the end.

Over and over again, all through the night, she had thought it out.
She loved Jean. She loved Jean so much! She had trembled once when
she had tried to think how much, and the thought had come so quickly,
before she could arrest it, that she loved Jean as much as she loved
God--and then she had prayed the _bon Dieu_ not to be angry with her
for the sin, for she had not meant to think such thoughts as that.

It was true what they had said when they had passed by on the road
yesterday evening. There was no place in his new life for her. A
hundred little things all through the week had shown her that, only,
until yesterday evening when Monsieur Bliss had spoken, she had not
understood what they meant--Nanette, that first day, when Jean had come
to lunch with mademoiselle and monsieur; the curious, side-long glances
that the villagers gave her now; a strange, embarrassed reserve in
Father Anton, when the good cure had spoken to her lately; that wide,
vast gulf that lay between the world mademoiselle lived in, the world
that Jean was going to, and her own world. They had all seen
it--except herself. And she had not understood because she had not
allowed herself to think what it might mean, what she knew now it
meant--that she must lose Jean.

To let Jean go out of her life because France had claimed him--that was
what her soul had whispered to her all through the night. A Daughter
of France, her Uncle Gaston had called her proudly--it was Jean who had
told her what her uncle had said--that he had taught her to love God
and be never afraid. But she was afraid now, she had been afraid all
through the night, for it seemed as if there were no more happiness, as
though a great pain that would never go away again had come to her.

France had claimed Jean. He was to be a famous man. Did they not all
talk of his glorious future? It was different with Jean--years ago
even she had known that. She herself had told him he was different
from the fishermen of Bernay-su