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"Yes," she said simply "Of course Then I must not detain you God

keep you safe," she continued, with a faint quiver in her tone; and her

lip treht, and fair dreaallantly "Of you, sweet!" he cried; and turning

aith a gesture of farewell, he set off on his return

He walked briskly, nor did he look back, though she stood awhile gazing

after hiht to this; nor that it

hurt her Yet when bolt and bar had shot behind her, and she had mounted

the cold, bare staircase of that day--when she had heard the dull echoing

footsteps of her attendants as they withdrew to their lairs and sleeping-

places, and still more when she had crossed the threshold of her chaned to Madame Carlat and her wo

Perhaps the chill that possessed her caed Or possibly it cah it was; or of sheer nervousness, or of the rein, she took it to bed with her and

long after the house slept round her, long after the crowded quarter of

the Halles had begun to heave and the Sorbonne to vo after the tall houses in the gabled streets, from St Antoine

to Montmartre and from St Denis on the north to St Jacques on the

south, had burst into rows of twinkling lights--nay, long after the

Quarter of the Louvre alone rehtness--she lay awake At length she too slept, and dreamed

of home and the wide skies of Poitou, and her castle of Vrillac washed

day and night by the Biscay tides