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Rh whip told her that another carriage was on its way. A break came dashing along, carrying Simare and a couple of officers, and disappeared down the same lane.

For a second, Gilberte stood breathless at a horrible thought. She would not, no, she would not have it! Then, suddenly, she began to run at full speed. A cross-roads brought her to a stop forthwith. Which of the three roads should she take?

She chose the one on the right, but, after running fifty yards, went back to the middle one and then to the one on the left. After that, she roamed at random, beating the copses, hunting on the grass for the marks of carriage-wheels, flinging herself among the ferns, listening and looking with all her nerves on edge. ...

A shot ... and a second, at almost the same moment ... close by. ...

She gave a scream and fell to the ground.

A few minutes passed. As though in a dream, she saw, through the branches, the

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110 two carriages driving by. Then voices sounded:

"I assure you, doctor, I am not mistaken. It was a woman screaming."

She had not the strength to raise her eyelids or speak; but she felt that two men were coming towards her. One of them bent over her and took her hand:

"It's nothing. She has only fainted."

"In that case, doctor, don't wait," said the other voice. "I will see her home."

The mist in which she was struggling lifted slowly. She perceived the smell of the earth on which she lay. She made an effort to throw off the feeling of sleep that numbed her and she opened her eyes. Guillaume was standing before her.

"You, you?" she whispered. "Oh, how glad I am! And M. Simare?"

"He's not hurt either."

"That's a good thing."

There was a pause; and then she asked:

"Why did you do it? It was not right."

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Rh "I lost my head, when he spoke to me last night, and I yielded to an irresistible impulse of hatred. I did not know what I was doing."

"But your mother?"

"I have managed to hide the truth from her so far. One of my seconds said that he would tell her."

"Go to her, run as fast as you can. ... She will be so anxious until she sees you. ... Go at once. ..."

"No."

He was so firm that she despaired of persuading him. And yet she wanted him to go. Then she looked at him and smiled:

"To please me," she said.

"Very well," he said, "but you must come too."

She at once summoned her pluck and rose to her feet; and, when she expressed her wish to get back without delay he led her through the short cuts where there was hardly room to walk side by side. But their pace

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46 Colonel, my real name isn't Smith, it's Yancy. I had to change it, because three or four years ago I had a little trouble with a gentleman, and—er—well, in fact, I had to kill him; and the District Attorney, he had it in for me, and so I just skipped the country; and now, if it ever should be brought up against me, I should like to show your certificate as to my character!" The course of frontier justice sometimes moves in unexpected zigzags; so I did not express the doubt I felt as to whether my certificate that he had been a good soldier would help him much if he was tried for a murder committed three or four years previously.

The men worked hard and faithfully. As a rule, in spite of the number of rough characters among them, they behaved very well. One night a few of them went on a spree, and proceeded "to paint San Antonio red." One was captured by the city authorities, and we had to leave him behind us in jail. The others we dealt with ourselves, in a way that prevented a repetition of the occurrence. The men speedily gave one another nicknames, largely conferred in a spirit of derision, their basis lying in contrast. A brave but fastidious member of a well-known Eastern dub, who was serving in the ranks, was christened "Tough Ike"; and his bunkie, the man who shared his shelter-tent, who was a decidedly rough cowpuncher, gradually


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112 at once; and they stopped three times to rest on the road. Gilberte no longer displayed any hurry. What did they say? Nothing but insignificant words, which they did not remember afterwards. Nevertheless, when uttering them, they felt that they had never been interested in weightier matters. What importance could suddenly have attached, in the course of a walk, to the sight of two initials interlaced on the bark of a tree, or to the flight of a bird, or to a stone rolling down a slope! Whereas, to them, these were so many astounding incidents that deserved a stop and the interchange of a few ecstatic words.

A contest between some insect and a squad of five ants that were trying to drag it away kept them for quite a long time. Who would be the victor? Gilberte took pity on the insect and saved it when it was on the point of falling in the fray. Guillaume exclaimed, in accents of profound conviction:

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Rh "You are the most generous-hearted creature I have ever met."

Guillaume compared the moss at the foot of an oak to velvet; and Gilberte became aware that all the poetry in the world was summed up in her companion.

Having exhausted their original reflexions, their brilliant remarks and their mutual admiration, they were silent until they emerged from the wood. A lane of apple-trees led them past furze and rocks. At the foot of the slope ran the Varenne. After they had taken a turn, Gilberte cried:

"Look, that might be my garden, on the other side. ... Why, so it is! ... There's the Logis. ... Where are we?"

She walked on. They came to a cluster of small fir-trees. When they had passed them, they were just opposite the ruined summer-house, with only the width of the valley in between.

Gilberte gave a start. That spur of the hill, that circle of red rocks surrounding it,

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114 that cluster of firs: was this not the spot where the unknown stranger, for months ... ?

A flood of contradictory feelings welled up within her: feelings of gratitude towards the invisible friend, feelings of confusion towards the actual friend, memories of the dear past and visions of the present. How she wished that she had not come to this place with Guillaume! She felt inclined to exclaim:

"Go away! Go away!"

But, on turning her head, she was stupefied at the sight of his pallor and the change in his face:

"What's the matter? Why don't you say something? Speak to me!"

She broke off. A sudden thought struck her, an improbable, but madly delightful idea. She fixed her eyes on his, looked down into his very soul; and the truth appeared to her so clearly that, leaning against the side of the rock, she gasped:

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Rh "It was you all the time! ... It was you! ..."

Not for a moment did the shadow of a fear that she was mistaken, cross her. Holding her head between her hands and closing her eyes, she took refuge in her happiness as in an inaccessible dwelling from which not even he could have driven her.

He was speaking now, kneeling before her; and it seemed to Gilberte as though two voices were joined in that one voice of entreaty, as though the unknown friend were joining his prayer to Guillaume's, blending his image with Guillaume's, mingling with him and beseeching her with the same hands, adoring her with the same heart:

"Gilberte, it was the day on which you arrived at Domfront. You were in the public gardens, near the ruins, and I saw you raise your mourning-veil. Since that day, my life has been wrapped up in yours. When you went over the Logis with my mother, I was there, hiding behind a curtain. You

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116 stopped close by me, I was able to take you in my eyes, to lock you in my breast like a treasure; I heard your voice, I breathed your fragrance and I lived on that memory for weeks, seeking you, calling you, hovering round the Logis, hoping for a chance meeting. Oh, the delight of it when I saw you from here, one afternoon, and when you came back next day and every day, everyday! I was not sure, but it appeared to me that you saw me ... and then ... that it was just a little because of me that you came back."

"I saw you, yes, I saw you," said Gilberte, without removing her clasped hands from her face.

He asked:

"Are you crying?"

"I am so happy!"

"Happy?"

"Yes, happy because it was you."

"Gilberte," he begged, "I would give worlds to see your tears."

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Rh She showed her dear face all wet with tears, all smiling with tears. He whispered:

"I love you."

She seemed surprised and repeated, gravely:

"You love me ... you love me ..."

He watched her anxiously. But the bright features lit up anew and she said to Guillaume, gaily and blithely, as though she had made the most wonderful and unexpected of discoveries:

"But, you know, Guillaume, I love you too."

She had the look of a delighted child. She could have clapped her hands, so great was the enchantment of that magnificent vision of love, so sweet was it to know that she loved and was loved.

She leant over to him prettily:

"Then you are the one I was loving all the time and it is you that I love, Guillaume?"

"Gilberte ... please ..."

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118 "What do you want? Tell me what you want, Guillaume."

"Your eyes, Gilberte, to kiss your innocent eyes, your eyes which are like the eyes of a little girl."

Closing the lids, she offered her eyes, as though it were a quite natural thing. He took her in his arms and drew her to him. But a shiver passed through her at once. She made an instinctive movement of resistance and moaned:

"No ... no ... oh, please don't! ..."

She was not laughing now. A blush covered her cheeks and forehead. She no longer dared look at him; and Guillaume's eyes almost hurt her. This time, it was the real, perturbing, mysterious revelation of love. Shaken with emotion, she faltered:

"Go away ... please go away ..."

He kissed the hem of her skirt, picked some leaves, some blades of grass that Gilberte's feet had trodden and went away.

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":

"I must not see you again. When you read these lines, I shall have left Domfront. You are rich and I am poor: you need look for no other explanation of my departure and of my conduct in the past. I loved you from the first; and from the first I swore that I would shun you and for ever conceal the feeling with which you inspire me.

"Do you now understand why I behaved so coldly to you from the beginning, though my heart throbbed at the mere sound of your voice; why I was so hard to my mother, whose plans were obvious to all and drove me to exasperation: I was afraid lest you should think that I was privy to them; why I kept in the background, hiding among

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120 those rocks, looking at you from a distance as at a goal which I knew was, and wished it to be, inaccessible?

"But you came to me, Gilberte: that is all my excuse. You came to me out of kindness to my mother, perhaps also prompted by that instinct which makes us conscious of love where it lies deepest. What could I do against your fascination? I did not even struggle. I closed my eyes to all that was not you, you and your beauty and your smile and your charming grace and the colour of your hair and the freshness of your cheeks and the rhythm of your footsteps; and, with not a further thought of my oath or the inevitable consequences of my weakness, I accepted the infinite joy that came to me. Oh, Gilberte, those few weeks! ... But there was something which I had never imagined in my boldest dreams: you loved me, you also loved me.

"You love me, which means that happiness is within my reach to-morrow, the next

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Rh day, every day. It is there, I have but to take it; a word from me and you are my wife. For I know you, my beloved: the gift of your heart is the gift of your entire life.

"And so I must go, if I would not be overcome by temptation ...

"Oh, Gilberte, you do not know what I am feeling and suffering, you who do not know what you are, you who are all that is most human and most divine, most noble and most simple, a miracle of harmony, attractiveness and light. But you know nothing of yourself and will never know anything. One could tell you and your mirror could teach you all the perfections of your face and form; and yet you would not know them. Were you a child of ten, wearing the white frock of your first communion, I should proclaim my admiration with the same frankness and with no greater fear of hurting your modesty. The whole world might be at your feet, chanting your praises; and you would be none the less humble.

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122 That is the marvel of your ingenuous nature. All is merged in your purity, as in a great, limpid sea in which every impurity would vanish. It is impossible to think of you without evoking images of whiteness, of transparency, of crystal water. By what mystery has it come that the trials of life, the realities of marriage have not soiled the freshness of your innocent eyes?

"And so I shall never see your eyes again: your eyes of the dawn, your eyes fresh as the dew, your kind, ignorant, gentle eyes, so fond, so gay, so sad ..."

She lowered her head, overcome with emotion. Mme. de la Vaudraye, who had brought her this letter from her son and who waited for her to finish reading it, said, rather aggressively:

"I should be glad of a word of explanation, Gilberte. Yesterday, my son fights a duel without any adequate cause. To-day, he leaves me, without giving me any reason.

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Rh Have these two incidents anything to do with you? You must admit their seriousness to a mother."

Gilberte handed her the letter. Mme. de la Vaudraye read it and shrugged her shoulders:

"Are you so very rich?"

The girl gave her another letter, received that morning, in which the Dieppe solicitor furnished her with her quarterly statement. Mme. de la Vaudraye started:

"Impossible! Oh, my child, you must never let Guillaume know!"

"How can I? He has gone away!"

"And you sit there and say that so quietly! Doesn't his going distress you? Don't you love him?"

"Yes, I love him."

"Then write to him."

"Write to him?"

"Yes, tell him to come back ... tell him that his position makes no difference to you ..."

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124 She spoke with a certain embarrassment: and this made Gilberte feel awkward. However, she said:

"I can't write. Guillaume alone can solve the question that lies between him and his conscience."

Mme. de la Vaudraye gave an impatient gesture and cried:

"You can't write! What a ridiculous scruple! Is it any worse to write to a young man than to go walking about the country with him, as I hear you did yesterday? What! My son fights a duel because of you, he leaves me because of you; and, when I, his mother, ask you ...! Well, what's the matter? What are you looking at me like that for?"

A chair suddenly pushed aside, an overturned flower-vase bore evidence to Mme. de la Vaudraye's burst of irritation. She flew out again:

"Oh, yes, it's all very well, but one can't stand that eternal gentleness of yours!

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Rh Here am I, telling you how wrong you are, and you listen in such a queer way that I end by putting myself in the wrong. One always feels with you as though one were in front of an indulgent judge, who graciously forgives one's faults. And yet it's you who are at fault!"

"Why, of course!" said Gilberte, all confusion.

"Then why do I look like a prisoner being judged?"

"Oh, but you don't!"

"Yes, I do. It's all very well for you to bend your head and all very well for me to rave and yell: any one would think that I was to blame and that you were making allowances. You must admit, it is enough to make one lose all patience."

Presumably, Mme. de la Vaudraye was afraid of growing still more impatient, for she went away without another word.

Gilberte called on her, next day, and kissed her affectionately. There was not a

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126 word said about their difference of the day before.

They saw each other every day. According to the weather, they walked in the town or walked about the neighbourhood, leaning on each other's arm and heedless of any but themselves. But they invariably returned at the same hour.

"Ah, it's five o'clock: here are the ladies coming back!" people said.

This regularity was due to Gilberte. As soon as she was free, she went to the ruined summer-house and sat there until dinner-time.

"But why this hurry?" asked Mme. de la Vaudraye. "You never give me a minute over."

"And what about my daily appointment?" said Gilberte, laughing.

"Your appointment?"

"Why, yes, with your son: what would he think of me if I were not punctual?"

In the course of a longer excursion than

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Rh usual, Mme. de la Vaudraye, who was fond of turning the conversation on her past greatness, pointed out the limits of the property once possessed by her ancestors. They extended along both banks of the Varenne, as far as the spot where it joined the Andainette.

"To say nothing of what we owned on the forest side: the Revolution robbed us of that. Why, on the death of my father, the whole of the valley still belonged to us! My marriage-portion included everything down to the Bas-Moulin. And you should have seen the Logis in those days! Such furniture! Such works of art!"

Gilberte, to humour her, asked:

"And how did you lose it?"

"Oh, it's a long story, a heap of mysterious business-schemes in which my poor husband, a decent man, if ever there was one, allowed himself to be robbed by a company-promoter called Despriol. You remember that empty house, near

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128, which took your fancy yesterday, I don't quite know why? Well, that's where Despriol and his wife lived, up to fifteen years ago. Henriette Despriol was a charming woman; she and I were great friends; and she used to come to the Logis when she liked ... so did her husband, for M. de la Vaudraye was never happy out of his sight; and I did not dream of suspecting him, for he struck me as a good-natured, honest man and M. de la Vaudraye was careful to hide from me the dangerous speculations into which his evil genius was dragging him. Everything was discovered in an hour. Despriol took to flight, after losing, or rather stealing, all that remained to us. We were ruined."

She paused and then continued:

"There's worse than that. On the same evening, my dear friend Henriette came and flung herself on her knees before me and implored me to give her money to join her husband, who was in concealment in the

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Rh, and to enable them to leave the country and retrieve their fortunes. It was a piece of brazen impudence; and I showed her the door. Unfortunately, I left her alone, for a moment, in my bedroom. An hour after, I saw that a box containing all my jewels had disappeared. We rushed to her house: she was gone."

"Did you prosecute them?"

"We notified the police, but they were never found. Five years ago, I received a letter from Henriette in which she said, 'The ten thousand francs which my husband sent you this morning represent the value of the jewels. It is the first money which we have been able to put by. I am longing for the day when we shall be in a position to settle with you altogether and when I shall have the right to beg your forgiveness for all the harm that we have done you. Until that day comes there will be no rest for your repentant friend."

"And since then ...?"

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130 "Since then, I have received another letter, a few months ago, in which she told me that her husband was dead and that she was on her way to me with all the money she owed me."

"Well?"

"Nothing but lies! Nobody came. Do people like that come and pay back the money they have stolen! No, they were a couple of thieves. You ask anybody at Domfront about M. and Mme. Despriol: a nice reputation they left behind them! If either of them thought of coming back here, they'd be stoned in the streets! Henriette indeed! Why, I should spit in her face, that I would, the sneak, the hypocrite! ..."

She uttered those words with an accent of implacable hatred charged with all the rancour of those fifteen years of poverty and privation. Gilberte shuddered. The evil expression on that face filled her with a sort of repugnance. Nevertheless, she took

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Rh Mme. de la Vaudraye's hand and, raising it to her lips, murmured:

"You poor dear!"

And she did this not designedly, because it was Guillaume's mother whom she was conciliating, but from an undefined and all-powerful instinct that compelled her to be kind to this humiliated and disappointed woman.

It was the same instinct which had guided her hitherto and which made her still more attentive and affectionate in the days that followed, notwithstanding a certain sense of constraint which she felt in Mme. de la Vaudraye's presence. She knew no greater pleasure than to smooth the wrinkles from those sullen features at the moment when they were most firmly set; and to do this she employed all sorts of childish rogueries:

"Come, try hard and laugh. ... There, you have laughed!"

Mme. de la Vaudraye was touched by all

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132 this charm of manner. It made her neglect the artificial plan of conduct which she had arranged to captivate the girl: she forgot to conceal her faults, she even became natural and spontaneous.

One day, after something that Gilberte had said, with a sudden movement she drew the girl to her:

"Oh, my darling, what a treasure of a wife you would make!"

Gilberte smiled:

"Indeed! How do I know that you would have me for a daughter! ... However, we shall soon see ... perhaps to-morrow ..."

"To-morrow?"

"Why, of course! Isn't this the day when Guillaume is coming to the trysting-place where I wait for him every day?"

"Guillaume? I had a letter from him this morning from Paris. Besides, I know him; when he has made up his mind ..."

Gilberte looked at her watch:

"Five o'clock. Suppose he were there

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Rh now! ... Ah, I have a feeling that he is there to-day, that I shall see him! ... Good-bye till to-morrow."

She hastened away swiftly, leaving her companion speechless. Hope filled her breast, a hope each time disappointed, but never discouraged.

"Mme. Armand is coming back alone this afternoon," said the people at Domfront. "What a hurry she's in!"

She crossed the threshold of the Logis without stopping and went straight to the summer-house. Her eyes longed to pierce the screen of foliage that hid the hill from sight. She had not a doubt that he was there; and, at the same time, she felt the madness of her certainty.

She arrived. Her glance at once swept the rocks. He was there.

She was on the point of throwing him handfuls of kisses, or else of kneeling down and stretching out her arms to him across space, but she saw him running down the

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134 slope and she herself started running towards him, as fast as she could.

She arrived all out of breath at the bottom of the garden, broke down the little wooden gate, which was slow in opening, and sprang into the road at the moment when Guillaume crossed the bridge:

"Gilberte!"

"Guillaume!"

They assured themselves with a glance that nothing was changed in either of them and then silently followed the road that skirts the Varenne. They dared not speak, overcome with the importance of the words which they were about to pronounce. Besides, excitement gripped them by the throat.

Thus they arrived at Notre-Dame-sur-l'Eau, the old Norman chapel which is so prettily situated on the river-bank.

Leaning on the balustrade above the water flowing through the arches of the bridge, they revelled in the delight of

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Rh side by side. Then Guillaume said: "It was more than I could bear. I wanted to see you, if only for a few minutes ... and to gather fresh courage ..."

She asked, in a voice that did not sound like her own:

"Then ... you are going back? ..."

"I intended to ... but I can't now ... I can't now ..."

He continued, almost in a whisper:

"It's not weakness. But I am seeing you; and to see you is to see things and ideas as they are. You flood them with the light which is in you and which springs from you. Yes, I tried to escape the temptation and I had a wild desire to work in solitude, so as to achieve the wealth and fame that would have permitted me to marry you. And now ... and now I see that it is all madness. Why suffer uselessly? Let us struggle together, Gilberte. I can do nothing without you ... I am too much in love with you."

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136 "And your scruples?" she asked, maliciously.

"What do wealth and poverty matter? They are words to which I was able to attach a certain value when away from you in writing to you. But, when I am near you, it seems to me that they mean nothing. A man has no right to order his life by such empty phrases. ... Oh, Gilberte, you put everything in its right proportion, you are truth itself, your love gives certainty and peace! Such as I am, I am worthy of you, because you love me ..."

She gave him her hand. He asked:

"You are not angry with me?"

"For going away, Guillaume? No, I was so sure that you would come back!"

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the next afternoon, Adèle burst into the room where Gilberte was sitting after lunch:

"M'amMa'am [sic], there's Mme. de la Vaudraye and her son turning into the square. Am I to let them in?"

"Yes, certainly, I am expecting them."

"Then it's true what Mme. Duval says, that you're going to marry M. Guillaume, ma'am?"

"Well, suppose I am?"

"Oh, as far as M. Guillaume's concerned, I've nothing to say! But Mme. de la Vaudraye as your mother-in-law! If you want to know, ma'am, I'd rather ..."

The front-bell rang; and she went to the door looking very cross.

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138 Gilberte shot a glance at the glass over the mantel-piece, pushed a curl into place and nervously made a change in the flowers in the vases, bunches of roses which she had gathered herself. Adèle showed in the mother and son.

Mme. de la Vaudraye was radiant. A moment before, in the main street, the mere sight of her silk dress, her ceremonious walk and her triumphant expression must have told the inhabitants of Domfront the exact nature of her errand.

She entered with the ease of one who is quite at home. Her way of sitting down showed that she was definitely and blissfully taking possession. There was none of the stiffness, none of the preliminary commonplaces that usually mark this sort of interview. Mme. de la Vaudraye was much too eager to come to the point:

"My dear Gilberte, I wish to ask your hand for my son Guillaume."

All their love, all the unspeakable

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Rh of their souls, all their gratitude, all their faith in the future was contained in the glance exchanged by Guillaume and Gilberte. Nothing remained of the irritation which his mother's air of victory caused him, nothing remained of the anxiety which the other felt at this solemn hour.

Mme. de la Vaudraye did not even wait to hear the answer.

"First of all, my dear child, let me speak to you as a friend and as a woman of experience, who knows only too well, by what she herself has been through, that happiness in married life is based upon material prosperity. You know, don't you, how Guillaume and I are placed as regards money? On the death of my poor husband ..."

Guillaume rose and walked to the open window, as though bored beforehand by what was coming. Gilberte felt very much inclined to join him and to leave Mme. de la Vaudraye to fight out with herself the question of the material prosperity on which

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140 married bliss is based. But the older woman's imperious eye nailed her to her chair; and, nodding her head at intervals, by way of assent, she had to listen to a long speech in which strange phrases like separate and common property, joint estate and settlements kept on recurring.

"That will do nicely," she said, with an air of deliberation, though she did not understand a single word of what was said.

"Are we agreed?"

"Quite, madame."

"Well, children, kiss each other and bless you!"

Guillaume stepped forward and his outstretched arms closed round Gilberte. He kissed her forehead, kissed her eyes. She released herself, blushing, and said:

"It is my first kiss, Guillaume."

He felt a momentary bitterness:

"Your first ... from me."

She smiled:

"A girl must not receive a kiss from any

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Rh but the man she is engaged to ... and are you not the first, the only one?"

"What do you mean, Gilberte?"

"I mean, Guillaume," she said, in accents throbbing with her heart's gladness, "I mean that I am not a widow, that I have never been married, that I called myself a married woman in the hope of escaping attention and that no such person as Mme. Armand exists."

Guillaume was trembling with emotion. He understood, yet refused to admit the truth, so great would have been the anguish of a mistake:

"No, no, I dare not believe it ... you, a girl, unmarried!"

"What is there so extraordinary in that?"

"Oh, Gilberte!"

He had seized her hands and stood gazing at her in ecstasy.

She whispered:

"I was sure that you would be delighted."

"It is something more than delight. You

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142 seem to me even more beautiful and even more innocent and sacred. I do not love you any better, but I love you differently."

And he continued:

"Is it really possible? Is there no one in your past? Is there not even that shadow on my happiness?"

"My whole past is you, Guillaume."

Mme. de la Vaudraye came up to them. They had forgotten all about her; and her appearance gave them an impression that was all the more painful inasmuch as the sudden gravity of her features was in direct contrast with their own rapture. She said to Gilberte:

"If Mme. Armand does not exist, then whom is my son marrying?"

"Well, Gilberte ..."

"Gilberte whom?"

"Gilberte Me," replied the girl, trying to speak playfully, but half-uneasy at heart.

"Come, child, that's not enough. You must have a surname? ..."

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Rh "I suppose so ..."

"What was your father's name? Your mother's?"

"I don't know."

Mme. de la Vaudraye drew herself up to the full length of her angular figure. It was as though she were learning some terrible event, a catastrophe. Gilbert caught sight of Guillaume's pallor and suddenly understood what she had never even half-realized, the danger of her irregular position where a woman like Mme. de la Vaudraye was concerned. She shook with terror.

Guillaume interposed gently:

"Don't upset yourself, Gilberte. I need not say how little importance I attach to all this; but mother does not look at things from my point of view. Let us hear the facts."

Gilberte, without entering into details, told of the death of her mother, the loss of the family-papers and the whole chapter of accidents which had prevented her from penetrating the mystery that surrounded

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144 her. As she went on, her voice lost its assurance. All this story, which, until then, she had simply regarded as a source of petty worries, now, under Mme. de la Vaudraye's stern eye, appeared to her the abominable story of a worthless creature. To be without a name! She felt as much ashamed of herself as though they had made the unexpected discovery that she had an ear missing, or a piece of one cheek. And yet, in the silence that followed on her recital she sought in vain for the crime which she had committed, for the crime of which she was held guilty.

"Well, mother," said Guillaume, "there's nothing serious in that."

"Nothing serious!" sneered Mme. de la Vaudraye.

All her little middle-class, provincial feelings were outraged by this unforeseen revelation. The pride of the La Vaudrayes cried aloud within her. What would people say at Domfront if a La Vaudraye married a

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Rh girl without a name, a foundling, an adventuress, in fact! She pictured the tittletattle, the sidelong allusions, the condolences with which she would be overwhelmed.

"My poor friend, how very unpleasant for you! ... Of course, I knew there was something suspicious about her, for, after all ..."

And they would say, among themselves: "No name? Nonsense! When people haven't a name, it's because it's to their interest not to have one, because they are hiding their real name."

She did not take the trouble to put it politely. Bluntly, she declared:

"The marriage is out of the question. It will not take place."

Guillaume protested indignantly:

"Out of the question! And why, pray?"

"Can't you see that for yourself? I'm surprised at your asking!"

"I insist on knowing, as Gilberte's affianced husband."

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146 "Gilberte's husband! People don't marry ..."

"Silence, mother!"

He was standing before her, with his features convulsed. Another word and he would have closed her lips by mean force. She was afraid of him. He went on, dropping his voice:

"You are right, we had better not continue this explanation in her presence. Any words other than words of veneration I look upon as an insult to the girl I love."

He pushed her towards the door sternly. But Gilberte barred their road:

"No, Guillaume, not like that. ... If we must part, let it not be with angry words. ... I love both of you too well, yes, both of you, madame," she declared, in the voice that no one could resist.

Her gentleness was stronger than Guillaume's violence. He made no further movement. Mme. de la Vaudraye allowed herself to be led back into the room.

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Rh made her sit down and knelt beside her:

"Act as your conscience tells you, but, please, without any bitterness against me. ... Whatever you decide to do, do not let me lose your affection."

There may have been a sort of revenge on Gilberte in Mme. de la Vaudraye's unbending attitude. She rejoiced to see this child, who had always dominated her by her goodness and candour, on her knees before her, while she, the judge, looked down from her moral pedestal and put her to confusion from the heights of her respectability.

She did not reply. Gilberte continued:

"You remember our walk, a little while ago, when you showed me the former boundaries of your property. ... Well, I bought it all up ... in order to give it back to you. I hoped to bring you back here, to this house which belongs to you. Everything is yours, you would have managed and disposed of everything, you would have

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Rh the name of "The Dude." One unlucky and simple-minded cowpuncher, who had never been east of the great plains in his life, unwarily boasted that he had an aunt in New York, and ever afterward went by the name of "Metropolitan Bill." A huge red-headed Irishman was named "Sheeny Solomon." A young Jew who developed into one of the best fighters in the regiment accepted, with entire equanimity, the name of "Pork-chop." We had quite a number of professional gamblers, who, I am bound to say, usually made good soldiers. One, who was almost abnormally quiet and gentle, was called "Hell Roarer"; while another, who in point of language and deportment was his exact antithesis, was christened "Prayerful James."

While the officers and men were learning their duties, and learning to know one another, Colonel Wood was straining every nerve to get our equipments—an effort which was complicated by the tendency of the Ordnance Bureau to send whatever we really needed by freight instead of express. Finally, just as the last rifles, revolvers, and saddles came, we were ordered by wire at once to proceed by train to Tampa. Instantly, all was joyful excitement. We had enjoyed San Antonio, and were glad that our regiment had been organized in the city where the Alamo commemorates the death fight of Crockett,


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148 been the absolute mistress, answerable to no one, you would have resumed your proper place at Domfront, the Logis would have become what it used to be ..."

A gleam flashed through Mme. de la Vaudraye's eyes, but she restrained herself. The same inflexible will contracted her face into a hard and stiff mask. Coldly, she said:

"I am exceedingly sorry that all these fine plans cannot be realized, but it is not my fault. ... Make enquiries. ... Who knows? ... Perhaps you will succeed in finding out the indispensable truth."

Gilberte, in her despair, was nearly flinging her arms round her neck and saying:

"Stay here, please. ... Be to me the mother whom I have lost. ... I will love you like a daughter ..."

But Guillaume prevented her:

"Why humiliate yourself, Gilbert? ... If my mother will not consent ..."

"Well?"

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Rh "Well, are we not free?"

"No, Guillaume," she answered, firmly, "I will not marry you except with your mother's entire approval."

He turned pale and murmured:

"But ... we shall see each other ..."

"We shall not see each other. We can only see each other by stealth; and that is unworthy of us."

"Suppose I meet you ..."

"I shall not leave the Logis."

"But ..."

"We will wait, Guillaume. Am I not your promised bride?"

He bowed. His mother went out. He followed her.

And Gilberte felt as though she had never been so lonely in her life.

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day, Gilberte received the following letter from Maître Dufornéril, her solicitor at Dieppe:

",

"I have just received your telegram asking me where we stand in the matter of our enquiries. I have already given you the information which I obtained regarding your life and that of your parents at Liverpool, although this, unfortunately, told us nothing new. M. Kellner, which was the name under which your father made his fortune at Liverpool, left none but pleasant memories behind him in the commercial world of that city. On the other hand, no one knew anything of his private life or of his antecedents.

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Rh It was not even known that he was married; and this fully bears out what you told me of the retired existence which your mother and yourself used to lead.

"I was therefore obliged to pursue our investigations to Berlin, which takes us six years further back. Your father at that time called himself M. Dumas. And here we have evidence that a fire broke out on the 15th of October 18 in the warehouse of M. Dumas, a bonder of Anjou wines, in the Frischwasserstrasse. Among the rooms completely destroyed was that which M. Dumas, who was at the same time a general agent, used as an office in which to see his clients, most of whom were countrymen of his own. M. Dumas made an affidavit from which it appears that all his papers were burnt.

"On this side, consequently, we arrive at a very unfortunate certainty: your family-papers are no longer in existence; that is clear. We have therefore to trace your

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152 parents back to the time of their departure from France. Once we have done this and discovered the town in which they used to live, it will be easy, by advertising, to find out who you really are.

"Your father had in his employment, in Berlin, a Frenchman of the name of Renaudeau, whom he appears to have trusted absolutely and to have treated, according to the neighbours, as a friend of long standing. When he left Berlin, he made over his business to Renaudeau. Next year, Renaudeau went bankrupt. But he is believed to be at Hamburg. I have written to the French consul there; and I will let you know as soon as I hear from him."

Day after day went by, days like those which followed on her arrival at Domfront. Gilberte once more became the recluse to whom none had access save the poor and destitute of the countryside; and, though they still spoke of her as la Bonne Demoiselle of

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Rh the Logis and blessed her for her charity, it might well be that they no longer took away with them that impression of comfort which they welcomed no less than the alms. How could she have consoled them, she who herself was yearning for consolation?

However, she did not give up all hope. Gilberte had one of those rather passive natures which, in happy hours, overflow with generous gladness, but which, at times of trial, fall back upon themselves and live in that kind of quiet contemplation which is as it were a patient expectation. Mastering her sorrow and checking any signs of rebellion or distress, she appeared less sensitive than others to the most cruel blows with which fate overwhelmed her and, through every obstacle and every vicissitude, she pursued her inward dream, sad or joyous, bright or gloomy, but always built up of love and kindness.

The most appalling time was the close of day. Night fell late at that time of the

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154 year; and it would have been sweet indeed to go down to the summer-house after dinner. She had not a doubt but that Guillaume was regular in his attendance at their former trysting-place. He must be stretching out his arms to her now, calling her, entreating her, reproaching her: oh, the torture of not being able to go to him!

She never ceased thinking of him. The memories of their common past formed the only charm of the present; and, by one of love's illusions, she made her own memories begin on the very day on which Guillaume's began. And so she remembered the minute when he had caught her raising her mourning-veil in the garden by the ruins. She remembered the moment when, hiding behind a curtain, he had come near to her for the first time. Had she not always loved him? Why had she, from the first and despite Guillaume's deliberate rebuffs, sought to tame him, as Mme. de la Vaudraye called it, and to win his liking? Why also her

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Rh of friendship towards the mysterious unknown?

Gilberte took little or no heed of what the town said of all these happenings, having asked Adèle not to tell her: an order which the unfortunate servant found great difficulty in obeying! Domfront was bubbling and seething with comments! For, after all, there was this undeniable fact: in the sight of the whole world, as everybody could bear witness, a formal proposal had been made for Gilberte's hand in marriage; and it resulted in a breach between the La Vaudrayes and Mme. Armand. A complete breach! For they no longer even saw one another. And the inexplicable thing was that, since that famous afternoon, Mme. Armand had not once left the Logis.

What was underneath it all? From which side did the breach come? A score of contradictory versions went the round of the town, but none of them bore the marks of indisputable authenticity upon which the

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156 ever-scrupulous world insists before accepting a piece of gossip as fact. As for Mme. Duval, she was in a desperate plight. Pressed with questions, she was reluctantly compelled to admit that she knew nothing.

After the first fortnight, Gilberte, who dared not walk in her garden, ventured to go out once or twice, but only at times and in directions where she ran no risk of meeting people. Generally in the early morning, she would slip out by a side-door and make her way down to the river by the most shady and roundabout paths of the wood skirting the Logis.

Her almost daily destination was the little chapel of Notre-Dame-sur-l'Eau. It was here that she had had her last interview with Guillaume. It was a peaceful spot, where she loved to dream. One day, when she was coming back by a rambling way, she passed the house which was once tenanted by those Despriols who had brought about M. and Mme. de la Vaudrayes' ruin. The

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Rh rusty bars of the gate seemed crumbling to pieces. A tangle of weeds and brambles overran the garden. The front of the house was cracking; the slates of the roof were green; the windows were full of swallows' nests. Everything spoke of desertion and neglect. Nevertheless, Gilberte felt drawn to it.

The gate resisted her efforts and she walked round the garden-wall, feeling sure that she would find a door near a corner which she saw a little way off. She did find one; and it was open, as was the door at the top of the steps leading up to the house.

She had no sooner gone inside than the impression which the old house had made upon her became so distinct as to awaken recognition. It was that curious impression which we sometimes receive in the presence of scenes which we are sure that we have never looked upon and which nevertheless we seem to have always known. It is impossible that we should ever have visited a

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158 certain town; and yet the street in which we are is quite familiar to us: we have seen this shop before, that sign-board, this gable, that turning. Where and when? In what bygone existence? Or is it only an illusion awakened in our brain by a series of similar pictures?

"This is the drawing-room," said Gilberte, before opening the door.

And she amused herself by likewise pointing out, with absolute conviction, the kitchen and the dining-room.

But her astonishment was great indeed when, on the first floor, she entered a large room hung with grey wall-paper, on which birds and butterflies flitted amongst blue flowers. Where had she seen those flowers, those butterflies, those birds before?

She gave a start: in a corner, on the dusty floor, lay a doll, the last stranded relic of all that had once filled the house. And Gilberte knew that doll, knew it beyond a doubt.

She picked it up and, at the first touch of

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Rh it, was seized with an extraordinary emotion, as though it had been a doll of her childhood, a doll with which she had played at the age of three or four, one of those dolls which little girls treat as babies, lavishing on them all the devotion, the infinite care, the tenderness, the pride and the anxiety of the future mother. And she saw this one, this poor, wretched rag of a doll, with no clothes and only half a head, she saw it, or rather recalled it, clad in a dress of orange silk and a green shawl, with bronze shoes on its feet, a silver chain round its neck and the most wonderful mop of yellow hair upon its head.

She held it for a long time; and it seemed to her that her hands were used to that clumsy body and to the badly-jointed arms and legs. Nothing about the doll disgusted her. She felt as if she could kiss the little porcelain forehead, the prim, painted eyebrows, the chubby cheeks.

There was a faint sound behind her. She turned round and saw a dirty-looking woman

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160 with curiously staring eyes and great wisps of white hair all round her head. She was showing her teeth in a fixed and silent laugh. On the linen rag that did duty as a neckerchief hung a queer necklace made of chips of glass, pebbles, corks and twisted grass.

Suddenly the face became contracted with rage: its owner had caught sight of the doll. She ran up to Gilberte, snatched it from her hands and brandished it as though she would have struck the girl with it. But the doll fell to the ground, the threatening gesture ended in an attitude of hesitation and the old woman, with her body bent forward and her eyes staring, gazed at Gilberte.

Gilberte was frightened at first, but became gradually reassured under this steady gaze in which she seemed to feel an ardent and curious affection. She smiled at the old woman, who gave a silent laugh, picked up the doll and handed it to her humbly and gently. Gilberte refused to take it and the old woman grasped her hand and led her to

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Rh the second floor, to a cupboard crammed with child's shoes, rattles, broken toys, a little cradle, a chair on wheels and showed them to her with an air of saying:

"Pick where you like, take what you like; I give them to you."

But none of these things tempted Gilberte. Then the old woman took her down to the garden, led her to an acacia-tree, to a wooden bench, to what remained of a dovecote and, at each halt, questioned her with her eager eyes.

At last, Gilberte felt weary; little by little, since the woman's arrival, the deserted house had lost its mysterious charm for her; and she began to think of going. Thereupon the old crone, anticipating her wishes, took a key from her pocket and opened the rusty gate. She stooped, as Gilberte went out, and kissed the hem of her dress.

Turning round, a few minutes after, Gilberte saw her standing in the middle of the road, making signs to her.

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162 When she returned to the Logis, she told her adventure to Adèle, who exclaimed:

"Why, it must have been Désirée, the Despriols' old nurse! She is a poor old madwoman, but quite harmless, and lives near Notre-Dame-sur-l'Eau. She does nothing but wander round the house where she was a servant. She has been mad for quite two years, ever since the death of her husband and her three sons. It came upon her all of a sudden ..."

"But had the Despriols a child?" asked Gilberte.

"I should think so! A little girl who might have been three or four years old at the time when they went away: a dear little duck; and her nurse adored her. It broke the poor thing's heart to part with her. Since she went mad, she thinks oftener of the baby than of her own three sons. They did say that she heard about the child and that Mme. Despriol used to write to her."

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Rh "Did you know this Mme. Despriol, Adèle?"

"That I did, at Mme. de la Vaudraye's, when they lived here. ... She was a very nice lady, so cheerful and pleasant; good-looking, too, but, worse luck, so weak with her husband that he did as he liked with her."

"Mme. de la Vaudraye told me something about some jewels ..."

"Oh, that was quite true! There's no denying it: a thief she was ... and Mme. de la Vaudraye has good reason not to love her. And how she does detest her! And then she was jealous of M. de la Vaudraye, who ventured to flirt just the least bit with Mme. Despriol. You can imagine how mad Mme. de la Vaudraye was! She turns pale to this day, if you mention Henriette Despriol's name ..."

A few days later, Gilberte received another letter from Maître Dufornéril:

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164 "

"We are making headway with our enquiries and I hope soon to send you the news of our success. This Renaudeau who took over M. Dumas' business in Berlin is, as we thought, at Hamburg. He has seen the consul and declares that he knew your father for many years, going back to the date when he was still living in France. He refuses, for the present, to reveal M. Dumas' real name and antecedents; but I have no doubt that this Renaudeau, who is in a state of the greatest poverty, will yield to certain arguments.

"I think I may safely say, therefore, that my next letter will inform you of the name of your parents and the place at which you were born. ..."

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, who was less proof against joy than sorrow, awaited her solicitor's promised letter with feverish impatience. Another four or five days, a week perhaps; and the mystery would be cleared up and the only obstacle to her marriage swept away.

She kept more and more indoors. What was the use of short, stealthy walks, when her imagination, which was now unfettered, took her across the immensity of the world, on Guillaume's arm, under Guillaume's eyes? She tried to read novels, to calm her excitement. But what are fictitious adventures worth at a time when our own destiny is on the point of fulfilment and when it is to be fulfilled in cloudless happiness? The one and only adventure was that which was

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166 leading her towards Guillaume. The story began and ended with Guillaume. Guillaume was its sole hero.

"It will come to-morrow," she said, each day, with the fixed intention of sending the letter, the moment she received it, to Mme. de la Vaudraye.

The morning came and the afternoon and brought no letter. She felt not the least disappointment:

"It will come to-morrow," she thought, all a-quiver with hope.

The postman became a person of importance in her eyes, a gentleman worth considering. She shot her prettiest smiles at him, as though she were trying to win his confidence and to persuade him that he must have a letter for her in his bag.

Adèle was enraptured:

"Oh, ma'am, you're becoming as you used to be! And high time too! Yes, I was growing uneasy at seeing you always sad, taking no interest in things and looking so

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Rh pale. But, there, you're right: there's as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it!"

Released from her silence, Adèle was at last able to repeat all that Domfront had said about the breach and all that was happening now. And Gilberte learnt that Mme. de la Vaudraye's salon, after closing for three weeks, had reopened. M. Beaufrelant and M. le Hourteulx had been invited. Mme. Duval even predicted an approaching reconciliation with the younger Simare, whose father had never ceased pleading in his favour. At the last reception, the duet from Mireille, as sung by M. Lartiste the elder and Mle.Mlle. [sic] du Bocage, both of whom were making great progress, had been vigorously applauded. But the chief thing was the transformation undergone by Guillaume, whom everybody considered changed for the better.

"They can't get over it," said Adèle. "I hear that he is the life and soul of the party and so amiable and so polite: just like a

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168 proper young man. He seems on the best of terms with his mother. The young ladies are all gone on him. Bless my soul, he's a good-looking lad ... and it won't take long before he's turned all their heads ..."

Gilberte reflected:

"He's quite right to make himself amiable. It's the only way to get round his mother."

Nevertheless, she had to make a certain effort to look upon this as the only explanation of Guillaume's conduct.

Two more days followed without a letter. Then, one morning, Adèle came back from her shopping:

"Here's a bit of news!" she said. "There's no harm in telling you, now that you've got over things. M. Guillaume is engaged to the eldest Charmeron girl."

Gilberte burst out laughing:

"It's one of Mme. Duval's matches!"

"No, no, I hear it from others as well: the Bottentuits' servant told me; so did M. Beaufrelant's gardener. Mme. de la

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Rh announced it last night when every one was there."

Not for a moment did Gilberte admit the possibility of so great a perfidy. Nothing evil could ever come from within her: no suspicions, no doubts, no base thoughts; and whatever came from without broke against her love like impotent waves. How could she have pictured treachery, who did not know that treachery existed?

She was therefore very cheerful all day long. Nevertheless, at sunset, an irresistible force drew her to the ruined summer-house. Guillaume was not among the rocks in the valley.

Nor did she see him the next day. That night, she had a touch of fever and her mind wandered a little, mingling the picture of Guillaume with that of Mlle. Charmeron.

She laughed merrily at all this on waking. Nothing could touch her faith in her lover. She was as sure of him as of herself.

She rose in good spirits, resolved to be

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170 happy come what might. And she was happy: a plucky creature judging others by her own lofty standards, whose nerves and woman's instinct may be alarmed for a moment, without allowing a breath to disturb the serenity of her soul.

She played and sang until lunch-time. After lunch, she strolled in her garden and picked some flowers. When she went in, she found Guillaume waiting for her in the drawing-room:

"You ... you ...!" she murmured, half-swooning with emotion.

She was obliged to sit down and they remained at some distance from each other, not daring to raise their eyes. It seemed to Gilberte as though her whole life would not be enough to take in all the joy that wrapped her round. How right had she been to be happy in spite of all things and to prepare herself for this greater happiness, which she could never have borne, had she been sad and suspicious.

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Rh Guillaume asked:

"Did you not meet my mother? She is looking for you in the garden."

"Is your mother here?"

"Oh, Gilberte, would I have come without her, when I would not even go over there, among the rocks, for fear of displeasing you?"

She recalled her disappointment of the last evening and the evening before and was on the point of accusing herself ... but of what? Had she lent a willing ear to the calumnies of the town? She said, simply:

"I am glad of what you have done for Mme. de la Vaudraye."

"What have I done?"

"Was it not a sacrifice to be at her parties?"

He went up to Gilberte:

"A sacrifice? Not at all. ... Ah, that's because you don't know what has happened during the last few days! ... Why, I am prepared to do all that she wishes and to

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172 take an interest in all that interests her and to like everything that she likes! ... If you only knew, Gilberte. ... Listen ... or rather, no, I prefer that she should tell you ..."

"Oh," cried Gilberte, "if they are hopeful words, precious words, why not say them yourself, Guillaume? Will they not be sweeter if I hear them from your lips? Speak, Guillaume ... I want them to be associated in my memory with the sound of your voice ... please, please ..."

She besought him with her gentle, loving smile. He at once said:

"Very well, Gilberte, I will."

He was interrupted by Adèle, bringing in a letter on a tray. Gilberte took the letter and, while the servant was leaving the room, mechanically cast her eyes upon the postmark. A cry escaped her:

"Guillaume!"

Her fingers trembled. She could only whisper:

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Rh "A letter from Dieppe ... from my solicitor. ... Oh, I was waiting for it so anxiously! ... Think, Guillaume: it brings me a name ... nothing can separate us now ..."

The excitement was too much for her. She felt herself small and feeble in the grip of an over-great happiness. And, covering her face with her crossed hands, as was her wont at moments of perturbation, she wept tears of delight.

Some minutes passed in silence. She heard Guillaume open the garden-door. Steps approached, some one sat down beside her, a hand unlocked her fingers: it was Mme. de la Vaudraye.

She shrank back imperceptibly. But Mme. de la Vaudraye said:

"Gilberte, are you afraid of me?"

And the voice was so gentle that Gilberte was quite stirred. She looked at her through her tears and hardly recognized her. Her features had lost their customary

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174, her countenance the expression of implacable pride that deprived it of all its charm. And this charm now showed itself in the eyes, which had lost their severity, in the pathetic wrinkles of the forehead, in all that sad and withered face.

"Gilberte, you wished to be my daughter: do you wish it still?"

She had no time to reply. Guillaume had rushed up to both of them and was kissing them by turns. And he said, fervently:

"Let us love her, Gilberte. We owe her the greatest gratitude for what she is doing. It means the sacrifice of her most cherished ideas and she has consented to that sacrifice of her own accord."

"Come, Guillaume, don't make me out better than I am!" protested Mme. de la Vaudraye, in a playful tone. "Are you quite sure that I have not merely yielded to sordid motives? If Gilberte had been a poor girl, without any money ..."

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Rh "Oh, madame," said Gilberte, "that counts for so little!"

"Yes, with you and Guillaume, who are young and think only of your happiness, but not with me, who have suffered so much from the change in my fortunes. I can't help it: one cannot alter at my age; I have a name of which I am very vain; and my dream has always been to restore it to all its brilliancy."

She playfully stroked Gilberte's hair:

"And think of all my blandishments, from the very beginning, Mme. Armand! You can't say that I wasn't clever in getting round you and making you do what I wanted! Well, then, one day, you tell me that you have bought up my family estates and you offer to reinstate me as mistress of the Logis. How could I have the courage to refuse?"

She displayed a sort of unspoken wish to make amends to Gilberte, a wish which her pride prevented her from revealing as openly

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176 as her heart would have prompted her, but which, nevertheless, appeared in her manner of confessing, as though in fun, the shabby side of her behaviour. Gilberte had too much delicacy of mind to take pleasure in this admission and replied:

"It's your son's happiness which you have not had the courage to reject. It is so easy to tell that all your ambitions and all your hopes are only for him."

But Guillaume was less indulgent and exclaimed:

"Really, mother, one would think that you were trying to cheapen your consent! Come, tell her of our talks of the past fortnight, tell her that you know the whole story of our love and that you understand Gilberte, as she deserves, and that that is why you agree."

Mme. de la Vaudraye made a last stand. It was the final effort of her vanity. She seemed undecided, bewildered, staggering, like one trying to keep her footing before

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Rh falling; and then, suddenly vanquished, she took Gilberte in her arms:

"Yes, child, yes, it was you who conquered me ... I have come to you not because you are rich and generous, but because you are good and sincere and the noblest creature that ever lived. ... Yes, I have thought of the future, from the start, and I think of it still; but, also from the start, your goodness has been working on me as on every one else. I loved you apart from any sort of calculation. And, after refusing my consent, it was no use my heaping up reasons to confirm me in my resolve: I could only remember your dear gentleness, your innocence, your childlike simplicity."

"Oh," whispered Gilberte, "how happy you make me!"

"You shall always be happy, child, where it depends on me: that I promise you. ... As for Guillaume, oh, if you knew how he speaks of his sweetheart! I know you now as well as he does. But did I need his words

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178 in order to know you? What he feels in you, that delicate bloom and innocence, I have always felt. And I know all the power of your eyes: they bring purity and peace ... one is better for looking at them ... one sees more clearly ..."

Gilberte, in her confusion, nestled her head against the friendly shoulder. She was delaying, as a joy in reserve, the news of her recovered name; and the thought of the pleasure which she held in store gave her tiny thrills of impatience. She said, in a whisper:

"Then ... my name ... my past ..."

"Rubbish!" cried Mme. de la Vaudraye. "What did all that matter where you were concerned, my innocent Gilberte? Those prejudices fade away into nothing when we look at them with your eyes and judge them with your candour."

"Do you mean that?" asked the girl, releasing herself and looking at her with a radiant air. "Have you no regrets?"

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Rh "None at all."

"Then read this letter, which has just come: it will tell you the secret ... I too have a family. ... Ah, madame, you will have no need to blush for me!"

Mme. de la Vaudraye did not at first understand; then, when Gilberte had told her of the search conducted by the solicitor, she could not conceal her satisfaction:

"So you have succeeded? Oh, I am glad! ... Why should I deny it? I was bothered in advance about what other people would say: pardon my weakness, I can confess it now that I have accepted you as a daughter before knowing that your parents were worthy of you. The fear that they might not be was the only obstacle; and that was irrevocable. But I overcame that fear. Something to boast of, was it not? As though it were difficult to know them, when one knows you!"

She took the letter, felt it and said:

"We shall soon learn the name of two

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180 good people. Your father must have had your fascination, Gilberte; and your mother: I picture your mother as an exquisite, charming creature like yourself. ... Did you love her very much?"

"More than my life, madame."

"Here, Guillaume, read it out."

Guillaume took and opened the envelope. As he was unfolding the letter which it contained, he had a momentary hesitation.

"Why, what's the matter?" asked Mme. de la Vaudraye.

"Nothing," he said, presently.

And he unfolded the letter.

They were there, all three of them, affected in different ways, but anxious and even a little timorous, as we are at the approach of the solemn events of our lives, even when we expect nothing from them but pleasure and satisfaction.

"Well?" asked Gilberte, who was certainly the least excited of the three.

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Rh Guillaume made up his mind and read, aloud:

",

"As I expected, our friend Renaudeau did not persist in his silence very long and, without further procrastination, has told us as much of your father's story as interests you. We now know that, at the time when he was living in France ..."

Guillaume stopped. He hesitated once more and the letter fell from his hands to his knees.

Mme. de la Vaudraye grew impatient:

"What are you thinking of, my boy?"

He replied, in a dreamy voice:

"I am thinking that we are about to violate the secret of two persons who must surely have had their reasons for keeping it so carefully. They may have been the offspring of two rival families, or a pair of lovers who were kept apart by convention,

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182 but whose hearts drew them together. Who can tell? In any case, don't you think that their secret belongs to them and that there is no reason that authorizes us to violate it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, mother, tell me what reasons you can have, tell me before that angel who is listening to us! You treated them as rubbish just now: have they become graver reasons since? State them: express your fear of public opinion, your dread of evil tongues, your horror of comment; and, as you do so, look into that pair of child-eyes and ask yourself if they understand what you are saying."

She protested feebly:

"What a strange wish, Guillaume! There is something which you are keeping back."

"Yes," he cried, rising from his chair, "there is something else which I do not see clearly. ... It is my love that objects. ...

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Rh I don't want to lift the veil that shrouds Gilberte. ... I prefer her so ... She is more mine like this ..."

He was walking up and down excitedly. Gilberte held out her arms to him. He flung himself on his knees before her:

"Gilberte, I beseech you, remain for me the dear unknown whom I loved from the first day that I saw her. I do not know what prompts me to beg this of you, but I want you to give me the intense joy of feeling that you exist only through me, that you are commencing your life with me, that you are heaping still more darkness upon your past so that your eyes may be obliged to turn still more towards the future. Be the unknown lady of the Logis. Be the unknown who mingled her dreams with mine, the dear unknown who came from I know not where, but who came to me, of that I am certain."

She hung on his words. He stammered, incoherently:

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184 "Oh, you will do it ... I feel it! ... And yet, Gilberte, listen ... the secret is yours ... you yourself have the right to know ..."

She answered, with a smile that lifted him into the seventh heaven:

"Guillaume, I do not want to know what you will not know. ... Besides, it matters so little! I was only happy for your mother's sake."

He bent his head and kissed her hands. Presently, they heard Mme. de la Vaudraye tearing up the letter. She said, simply:

"It shall be as you wish, my dear children. But don't you think, Guillaume, that there will be difficulties, that the law requires ...?"

"Never mind the difficulties!" he cried. "We shall see to that later. Everything will be settled as we intend, I am sure of it."

A long silence followed, full of grave sweetness. At the end of it, however,

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Rh, smitten with a vague remorse, murmured:

"And so, dearest, you will never know your name?"

She smiled:

"But I know my name: is it not Gilberte de la Vaudraye?"

"But your mother?"

"Oh, my mother!" she said, with shining eyes. "Mother's name was mamma!"

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48 Bowie, and their famous band of frontier heroes. All of us had worked hard, so that we had had no time to be homesick or downcast; but we were glad to leave the hot camp, where every day the strong wind sifted the dust through everything, and to start for the gathering-place of the army which was to invade Cuba. Our horses and men were getting into good shape. We were well enough equipped to warrant our starting on the campaign, and every man was filled with dread of being out of the fighting. We had a pack-train of 150 mules, so we had close on to 1,200 animals to carry.

Of course, our train was split up into sections, seven, all told; Colonel Wood commanding the first three, and I the last four. The journey by rail from San Antonio to Tampa took just four days, and I doubt if anybody who was on the trip will soon forget it. To occupy my few spare moments, I was reading M. Demolins's "Supériorité des Anglo-Saxons." M. Demolins, in giving the reasons why the English-speaking peoples are superior to those of Continental Europe, lays much stress upon the way in which "militarism" deadens the power of individual initiative, the soldier being trained to complete suppression of individual will, while his faculties become atrophied in consequence of his being merely a cog in a vast and perfectly ordered machine. I can assure the excellent French publicist


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Rh that American "militarism," at least of the volunteer sort, has points of difference from the militarism of Continental Europe. The battalion chief of a newly raised American regiment, when striving to get into a war which the American people have undertaken with buoyant and light-hearted indifference to detail, has positively unlimited opportunity for the display of "individual initiative," and is in no danger whatever either of suffering from unhealthy suppression of personal will, or of finding his faculties of self-help numbed by becoming a cog in a gigantic and smooth-running machine. If such a battalion chief wants to get anything or go anywhere he must do it by exercising every pound of resource, inventiveness, and audacity he possesses. The help, advice, and superintendence he gets from outside will be of the most general, not to say superficial, character. If he is a cavalry officer, he has got to hurry and push the purchase of his horses, plunging into and out of the meshes of red-tape as best he can. He will have to fight for his rifles and his tents and his clothes. He will have to keep his men healthy largely by the light that nature has given him. When he wishes to embark his regiment, he will have to fight for his railway-cars exactly as he fights for his transport when it comes to going across the sea; and on his journey his men will or will not have food, and his horses will or will Rh


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50 not have water and hay, and the trains will or will not make connections, in exact correspondence to the energy and success of his own efforts to keep things moving straight.

It was on Sunday, May 29th, that we marched out of our hot, windy, dusty camp to take the cars for Tampa. Colonel Wood went first, with the three sections under his special care. I followed with the other four. The railway had promised us a forty-eight hours' trip, but our experience in loading was enough to show that the promise would not be made good. There were no proper facilities for getting the horses on or off the cars, or for feeding or watering them; and there was endless confusion and delay among the railway officials. I marched my four sections over in the afternoon, the first three having taken the entire day to get off. We occupied the night. As far as the regiment itself was concerned, we worked an excellent system, Wood instructing me exactly how to proceed so as to avoid confusion. Being a veteran campaigner, he had all along insisted that for such work as we had before us we must travel with the minimum possible luggage. The men had merely what they could carry on their own backs, and the officers very little more. My own roll of clothes and bedding could be put on my spare horse. The mule-train was to be used simply for food, forage, and spare ammunition. As


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Rh it turned out, we were not allowed to take either it or the horses.

It was dusk when I marched my long files of dusty troopers into the station-yard. I then made all dismount, excepting the troop which I first intended to load. This was brought up to the first freight-car. Here every man unsaddled, and left his saddle, bridle, and all that he did not himself need in the car, each individual's property being corded together. A guard was left in the car, and the rest of the men took the naked horses into the pens to be fed and watered. The other troops were loaded in the same way in succession. With each section there were thus a couple of baggage-cars in which the horse-gear, the superfluous baggage, and the travel rations were carried; and I also put aboard, not only at starting, but at every other opportunity, what oats and hay I could get, so as to provide against accidents for the horses. By the time the baggage-cars were loaded the horses of the first section had eaten and drunk their fill, and we loaded them on cattle-cars. The officers of each troop saw to the loading, taking a dozen picked men to help them; for some of the wild creatures, half broken and fresh from the ranges, were with difficulty driven up the chutes. Meanwhile I superintended not merely my own men, but the railroad men; and when the delays of the latter, and their inability to understand what


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User:AdamBMorgan/LibriVox

This is a list of audiobooks uploaded to Wikimedia Commons so far, with checkmarks to show which have been linked to Wikisource texts (along with appropriate symbols on author pages and similar). This ignores audiobooks uploaded that have no corresponding text on Wikisource. This table is largely identical to the one on my Commons userpage.

title: User:AdamBMorgan/LibriVox


text:
Author:Louis Halphen

Articles and book chapters

 * "France, the Last Carolingians and the Accession of Hugh Capet (888–987)", in H. M. Gwatkin, J. P. Whitney, J. R. Tanner and C. W. Previté-Orton (eds.), Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922), pp. 71–98.
 * "France in the Eleventh Century", in H. M. Gwatkin, J. P. Whitney, J. R. Tanner and C. W. Previté-Orton (eds.), Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922), pp. 99–133.
 * "The Kingdom of Burgundy", in H. M. Gwatkin, J. P. Whitney, J. R. Tanner and C. W. Previté-Orton (eds.), Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922), pp. 134–147.
 * "The Church from Charlemagne to Sylvester II", in H. M. Gwatkin, J. P. Whitney, J. R. Tanner and C. W. Previté-Orton (eds.), Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922), pp. 443–457.

title: Author:Louis Halphen


text:
Portal:Homeschooling

Works

 * Home Education, 1838 by Isaac Taylor
 * Hints to Mothers on Home Education, 1862 by Frederick Bridges
 * Home Education in Relation to the Kindergarten, 1884 lectures by Emily Shirreff
 * Education in the Home, the Kindergarten, and the Primary School, 1887 by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and E. Adelaide Manning
 * Elementary Pedagogy, 1906 textbook by Levi Seeley
 * The Home School, 1913 by Ada Wilson Trowbridge
 * Teaching in the Home, 1915 by Adolf Augustus Berle
 * Self-help in Teaching, 1921 by Huber William Hurt
 * Home School; or Hints on Home Education, by Norman Macleod

Criticism of state education

 * State Education: A Help or Hindrance?, by Auberon Herbert as it appeared in the September 1880 Popular Science Monthly
 * The State as an Educator, by Henry H. Wilson as it appeared in the March 1881 Popular Science Monthly
 * Shams of the School, part of the 1916 The Tyranny of Shams by Joseph McCabe

Religious texts

 * The Education of Children by Menno Simons

Periodicals

 * The Home Monthly, a 19th century periodical "devoted to home education, literature and religion" published 1859-1863 by William M. Thayer

Wikimedia

 * Wikibooks: Wikimedia textbook collection
 * Wikiversity: Wikimedia learning resources

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Author:Hilary Bauerman

Works

 * A Treatise on the Metallurgy of Iron *

Contributions to EB1911

 * (in part)
 * (Solid)
 * (Solid)
 * (Solid)

title: Author:Hilary Bauerman


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User:JehLay

Blessings always be!

JehLay is a combination of Jeh from Gerald and Lay the family name. JehLay is the nickname of Gerald Lay. JehLay also known as Gerald Lay a Filipino was born on the 16 October 1958, Manila, Philippines. JehLay most favorite quotation: Blessings always be!

JehLay as an individual traveler travelling the world river of time today believes in respect begets respect; karma, law of cause and effect; that's why JehLay only passes through this world but once, JehLay will do the best!

JehLay a student of Life and student for Life knows that experiences are the best teachers guiding and giving references for the possible solutions in life. Since Life is short, that's why JehLay is determined to make most out of it in Life. Since Life is what we make of it, we should know how we go about it, and most importantly is how to survive it!

JehLay have such fascinations of soul searching leading to soul travelling with the goal of reaching the Golden Temple of Wisdom to discover and explore the quest for infinite wisdom but with Divine Guidance from the Supreme Great Architect of the Universe.

As an ordinary individual JehLay is still learning to subdue the destructive passions in life such as anger, greed, lust, vanity and attachment. Because destiny is not a matter of chance but a choice; a choice, the path to follow with the will to survive and achieve the destination. Destiny is a thing to be achieved!

JehLay discovered that Love is the formula to success; because with Love, one learns humility. The real purpose of Love is not getting what we want; its main principle is the unconditional unselfishly giving of what we have. Cannot put a price or tag on the Love we give or share. Do not expect any return of investment of Love. Giving Love unconditionally eases as it releases the heavy feeling of the other destructive passions which burden within!

Blessings always be!

title: User:JehLay


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Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/242

 young in court, when their fathers fled, after the murder of the late king their master, were better Christians and better soldiers than any Abyssinians we had.

is not a matter of small curiosity to know what is their food, that is so easy of carriage as to enable them to traverse immense deserts, that they may, without warning, fall upon the towns and villages in the cultivated country of Abyssinia. This is nothing but coffee roasted, till it can be pulverised, and then mixed with butter to a consistency that will suffer it to be rolled up in balls, and put in a leather bag. A ball of this composition, between the circumference of a shilling and half-a-crown, about the size of a billiard-ball, keeps them, they say, in strength and spirits during a whole day's fatigue, better than a loaf of bread, or a meal of meat. Its name in Arabia and Abyssinia is Buri, but I apprehend its true name is Caffe, from Caffa the south province of Narea, whence it is first said to have come; it is, white in the bean. The coffee-tree is the wood of the country, produced spontaneously everywhere in great abundance, from Caffa to the banks of the Nile.

much for this remarkable nation, whose language is perfectly different from any in Abyssinia, and is the same throughout all the tribes, with very little variation of dialect. This is a nation that has conquered some of the finest provinces of Abyssinia, and of whose inroads we shall hereafter have occasion to speak continually; and it is very difficult to fay how far they might not have accomplished the conquest of the whole, had not providence interposed in a manner little expected, but more efficacious than a thousand armies, and all the inventions of man.


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Antoni v. Greenhow/Concurrence Matthews

MATTHEWS, J.

I concur in the judgment of the court, but prefer to rest the decision upon a ground different from that on which it is placed in its opinion.

I agree that the state of Virginia, by the act of 1871, entered into a valid contract with the holders of its bonds to receive their coupons in payment of taxes; and that any subsequent statute which denies this right is a breach of its contract and a violation of the constitution of the United States.

But for a breach of its contract by a state, no remedy is provided by the constitution of the United States against the state itself; and a suit to compel the officers of a state to do the acts which constitute a performance of its contract by the state, is a suit against the state itself.

If the state furnishes a remedy by process against itself or its officers, that process may be pursued, because it has consented to submit itself to that extent to the jurisdiction of the courts; but if it chooses to withdraw its consent by a repeal of all remedies, it is restored to the immunity from suit, which belongs to it as a political community, responsible in that particular to no superior.

I adopt, as decisive of the present case, the language of the chief justice, in expressing the opinion of the court in the cases of the State v. Jumel and Elliott v. Wiltz, [post:]

'When a state submits itself without reservation to the     jurisdiction of a court in a particular case, that      jurisdiction may be used to give full effect to what the      state has, by its act of submission, allowed to be done; and      if the law permits coercion of the public officers to enforce      any judgment that may be rendered, then such coercion may be      employed for that purpose. But this is very far from     authorizing the courts, when a state cannot be sued, to set      up its jurisdiction over the officers in charge of the public      moneys, so as to control them as against the political power      in their administration of the finances of the state.'

I do not, therefore, consider it necessary to enter upon the inquiry, whether the remedy provided by the state of Virginia, by the act of 1882, is effective and substantial, compared with that which existed in 1871, when the bonds were issued. It is sufficient to say that it is the one which the state has chosen to give, and the only one, therefore, which the courts of the United States are authorized to administer.

BRADLEY and GRAY, JJ., concurred in the judgment upon both grounds: that stated in the opinion of the court as delivered by the chief justice, and that stated in the opinion of Mr. Justice MATTHEWS.

title: Antoni v. Greenhow/Concurrence Matthews