who do not know me at all, I may be allowed to earn my bread. Robert will find the scenery wonderfully stimulating."

So M. Pigaud was coming, too! Thérèse mentioned the train by which she would arrive, and begged that no one would meet her at the station. Robert was to follow later with the luggage.

Thérèse did not mention Paul Gustave or any single incident of the trial. There had been only one moment of emotion during her brief examination, when the counsel had said:

"Surely, Madame, you must have known this man was living by irregular means, even if he was not already a definite criminal?"

And Thérèse answered:

"He was my husband, and I loved him."

They had not asked her any more questions.

It was curious to Marie Céleste that Thérèse should have admitted, under the eyes of that consummate, conceited villain (the care he gave to his physical appearance in court shocked Marie Céleste nearly as much as his crimes) the compliment of past affection. Could she not simply have said: "I was young and without experience. He was my husband"? But Thérèse had said, “Je l'aimais." She had never had the solid pride of Marie Céleste. There was something fluid in her; she did not, like Marie Céleste, hold the chosen attitude of her soul beyond the reach of accidents.

A sound reached Marie Céleste like the click of the gate, which she had told Pierre to leave unlocked. She moved slowly between the black ilex that guarded the steep path down to the lower terrace, which overlooked the street and the sea. Château d'If and its little flock of islands were lighted, and shone in the deep night like flowers; the sea beneath them was a more massive darkness. In between the islands flickered the red and green lamps of the fishing-boats. Beyond the rocks, high and brilliant, like a galaxy of stars, a big liner flung its tremendous moving pattern against the screen of night.

The lower terrace was lighted by the street lamps just below. Mme. Condorcet peered down the steps and saw a figure mounting them. A little, old,

stout figure, rather out of breath and clumsy, she came into the lamplight waveringly and held out both her hands.

It was, Mme. Condorcet thought for a moment, Thérèse's mother, rather a tiresome old woman whom she had always been kind to, but who did not understand Thérèse; and then she remembered that it could not be Mme. Le Brie, because she had been dead two years.

It was Thérèse herself, changed beyond recognition, her small face colorless and sallow, her delicate features thickened and blurred, her gay eyes dulled, the mouth which lifted up like wings, turned resolutely down.

Marie Céleste did not wait any more. She took Thérèse in her arms and held her. She held her close for a very long time. She held her as close as if she had been Romance.

It was Thérèse who spoke first.

"It is as I hoped," she murmured. "You here alone, and nothing has altered -the gate, the steps, the trees, and here is the terrace where your babies played. My dear, I have not seen you since you lost Charles-" Her voice broke, but Marie Céleste's voice did not break.

"It is true," she said, "these abominable five years lie between us, and the summer we spent so happily together at Cassis. Nothing is changed here; even Charles's room is as he left it. I do not let Claire's children play with his toys. Pierre will be back shortly. We dine at eight o'clock on the terrace, as usual. Will you take something immediately or will you wait until Pierre returns?" "Let us sit here," said Thérèse, "and wait for Pierre."

Her eyes rested upon the face of Marie Céleste as they used to rest when she had been naughty and dreaded punishment. It had always reassured her to meet Marie Céleste's unwavering eyes even when they had been powerless to avert her doom. The altering of Marie Céleste's eyes was a punishment she had never had to meet. She did not have to meet it now.

Marie Céleste's eyes were blue without being bright. They were the delicate gray-blue of small hedge flowers, and they could look very tender.

"You still appear so young," Thérèse

said humbly, "and I-I am old, fat, and yellow. One sometimes wonders what has become of all one's little charms. Robert must wonder, for he thought so much of them. Poor Robert! That is the worst of being an artist: they depend on charms. I meant to tell you, ma chérie, but there have been too many things: we have put our little irregularities straight; the state has married us."

"Ah, yes," said Marie Céleste, quietly; "I had supposed you would do that. It is a better arrangement. He is the same then, I hope, the good Monsieur Robert?"

Thérèse gave a low, derisive laugh. "The same?" she asked. "As what? Mon enfant, he is the same as he has been for ten years-twelve. I forget! I keep his house, I fill his tobacco-jar. We are not too well off, as you know. I cook his meals, and some of what he earns perhaps assists my little marketings. The rest? Does one ask where birds' wings take birds? I ask nothing. He has done, in the circumstances, his duty. He knew I was a respectable woman, and he has treated me as such. And now-this has come! His career, as well as mine, you know, is out-like a spent match. Perhaps he may do something down here. He has, at any rate, attempted the sacrifice, and I have accepted his attempt. Could I have done otherwise? One must not lose too many husbands."

Marie Céleste put her firm, cool hand over Thérèse's feverish one.

"You have done," she said decisively, "what you should. The past is terrible, unspeakable, but over. Here in this garden and in your little apartment over the way we will renew our youth. You have been tossed like a small boat in a storm, all these years without solid earth under you; and I, who have had the solid earth, have had my heart torn up by the roots. Well, what is left of us can sit under these trees and talk."

"Before we talk," said Thérèse in a low, toneless voice, "I must tell you some thing, Marie. You may despise me; others would despise me. You may not wish to give your confidence to one who is so weak. I am French; j'y suis; j'y

reste. But I am also something else, something you have never been. Ah, Marie, I am a lover! That man-you spit perhaps if you say his name? He was my beloved; he rested against my heart. When they took him and bound him at Vincennes, when he stood bravelyfor he was always brave at a crisisagainst that white wall, it was I who was bound with him, and when those shots rang out, I also fell."

There was a long silence. Then Marie Céleste said with unshaken tenderness: "I can understand love. I, too, am a Frenchwoman, but first I am a mother. A mother can always understand love. Did you see him, my dear? You had the right, I suppose, before the execution?" Thérèse shook her head.

"No," she said; "it was enough. I saw him in court. He looked across at me. He was as young as when we parted, and I saw in his face such consternation. It was not remorse, you understand, for what he had done to me: he was horrified to think that he could have married a woman who at that time of day could look so like a frog! He had had, you see, twenty years excitement, pleasure, luxury, and I had had very hard workand Monsieur Pigaud, of course. Well, for Robert's sake also, I could not have gone to see him. Robert resented everything and understood nothing. What man would have done otherwise? No; I said only what I could. They asked if he had ill treated me, and I said, 'Never.' If I had not known he was bad? I said, 'He was my husband, and I loved him.' Marie, I am still his wife, and I still love him. What ceases ever but what has not existed? You and I sitting here under these trees where we sat as girls, as children almost, are we not the same? Do you not know that although my hair is gray and thin, my youth blotted out, my wildness run very tame, you are my rock still, and I only the waves that really break against it? Ah, that is Pierre entering, is it not?"

Marie Céleste rose, and led the way up the garden.

"It is time," she said briefly, "that I break the eggs for the omelet. You will, of course, remain?"