Part 47 (1/2)

”Because you are what you are, Aline--utterly good and pure and adorable

Angels do not ht become, but never his ates at the end of the avenue

Through these they beheld the waiting yellow chaise which had brought Andre-Louis From near at hand came the creak of other wheels, the beat of other hooves, and now another vehicle caht, and drew to a stand-still beside the yellow chaise--a handsoold and azure of arht A footates; but in thatAline, waved to her and issued a command

CHAPTER V MADAME DE PLOUGASTEL

The postilion drew rein, and the foot his arht, since that was the wish she had expressed Then he opened one wing of the iron gates, and held it for her She was a wo more than forty, who once must have been very lovely, as very lovely still with the refining quality that age brings to soreat rank

”I take my leave here, since you have a visitor,” said Andre-Louis

”But it is an old acquaintance of your own, Andre You reastel?”

He looked at the approaching lady, who forward to nized her He nized her without proh it was soht of her now brought it all back to him--a treasured memory that had never permitted itself to be entirely overlaid by subsequent events

When he was a boy of ten, on the eve of being sent to school at Rennes, she had come on a visit to his Godfather, as her cousin It happened that at the time he was taken by Rabouillet to the Manor of Gavrillac, and there he had been presented to Mlory then of her youthful beauty, with her gentle, cultured voice--so cultured that she had seee almost unknown to the little Breton lad--and her reat world, had scared hiently had she allayed those fears of his, and by soard He recalled now the terror in which he had gone to the embrace to which he was bidden, and the subsequent reluctance hich he had left those soft round arms He remembered, too, hoeetly she had smelled and the very perfuularly tenacious in these matters

For three days whilst she had been at Gavrillac, he had gone daily to the manor, and so had spent hours in her co within her, she had taken this precociously intelligent, wide-eyed lad to her heart

”Give hi on the last of those days to his Godfather ”Let me take him back with neur had gravely shaken his head in silent refusal, and there had been no further question of such a thing And then, when she said good-bye to hi back to him now--there had been tears in her eyes

”Think of me sometimes, Andre-Louis,” had been her last words

He remembered how flattered he had been to have ithin so short a tiiven him a sense of importance that had endured for months thereafter, finally to fade into oblivion

But all was vividly reain, after sixteen years, profoundly changed and irl--for she had been no more in those old days--sunk in this worldly wonity and complete self-possession Yet, he insisted, he ain

Aline e glance with faintly raised eyebrows thattowards Aline's companion--

”This is Andre-Louis,” she said ”You remember Andre-Louis, madame?”

Madame checked Andre-Louis saw the surprise ripple over her face, taking with it so her for a moment breathless

And then the voice--the well-remembered rich, musical voice--richer and deeper now than of yore, repeated his naested that it awakened memories, memories perhaps of the departed youth hich it was associated And she paused a longhim, a little wide-eyed, what time he bowed before her

”But of course I re out her hand He kissed it dutifully, subrown into?” She appraised him, and he flushed with pride at the satisfaction in her tone He seeain the little Breton lad at Gavrillac She turned to Aline ”How mistaken Quintin was in his assuain, was he not?”

”So pleased, madame, that he has shown me the door,” said Andre-Louis