--will we be late?" she ventured, evidently alarmed
into the belief, since he had not replied, that so dire a misfortune
was even more than a possibility.

And then he answered her very gravely.

"No, Marie-Louise. You need have no fear. It will only have begun;
and even if it were midnight we should still be in time. Affairs like
this are for all the evening, you see. Indeed, before going there, now
that I come to think of it, perhaps we had better see about finding
lodgings for you first. I know several very estimable families in this
neighbourhood who would be glad to give you a room for a small sum, and
you would be quite close to me, and--"

"But could we not do that afterwards?" she interposed quickly.

"Why, yes, of course, afterwards--if we do not stay too long at the
reception," Father Anton acquiesced. "You would rather do that,
Marie-Louise?"

"Yes!" she said--and the word came tensely--and she pulled impulsively
upon his arm.

And so then they hurried along, and after a little time the streets
grew brighter, better lighted, and from streets became great
boulevards, and from an occasional passer-by they were in the midst of
many people where one must needs elbow one's way to get along; but
Marie-Louise, save in a subconscious way that brought no concrete sense
of meaning, saw none of this--she saw only Jean again, the sturdy,
rugged figure that seemed to stand so clearly outlined now before her,
so real, so actual, so living, as he had been that night when he had
borne Gaston up the path in his strong arms; and the roar of the
traffic upon the streets was as the roar of that mighty storm and the
thunder of the sea breaking so pitilessly, so unceasingly upon the
rocks. And Father Anton spoke to her, pointing to this and that as
they went along--but she did not hear the cure. She was listening only
to another voice. "In just a little minute I shall see Jean ... I
shall see Jean ... I shall see Jean," her soul said. "I shall see
Jean."

And then she was standing before a great building, and the building was
ablaze with lights, and carriage after carriage, automobile after
automobile was drawing up before a strange sort of canopy where even
the street itself was laid with crimson carpet, and out of the
carriages and the cars poured a constant stream of wonderfully dressed,
fur-clad women and their escorts. And suddenly she drew back with a
start. What had she done? She had stepped upon the s