"It is ready," said Lefroi, as he handed it to her. "Tell thy noble brother that I send it with my most humble salutations. Also, if later thou requirest a love-potion for thine own use, sweet maiden, thou wilt not forget Henri Lefroi, the magician." "Forget," muttered the girl hysterically. "Forget!" She said no more, but seizing the phial eagerly, drew her cloak around her, quitting the hut with no further word of thanks or farewell. *CHAPTER XXI* "He lives?" whispered a soft voice, which trembled nevertheless with fear. Father Ambrose raised a grave, anxious face, looking with some surprise into the pale one bent close beside him. But Diane de Coray’s eyes were looking not at him for answer, but at the drawn, white face which lay back amongst the cushions of the great bed. There were ominous blue lines round the closed mouth and under the sunken eyes, whilst one burning spot of colour on each cheek but intensified their pallor. It was the face of a man who hovers on the brink of death, and already the curls which lay thick on the white forehead were damp with the death sweat, whilst the thin hands which strayed aimlessly over the coverlet plucked at it from time to time, as if some spasm contracted them. "He lives," replied the Benedictine mournfully; "but already, daughter, is his soul winged for flight. Leave him in peace, so that, if consciousness return ere the last, his thoughts may be fixed rather on the confession of his sins and the eternal love to which he goes forth than to the perishing flame of human passion." But Diane shrank back no whit at the reproof, or the priest’s cold manner. "Nay," she cried piteously, "he shall not die, father; see, I,—I have prayed to the holy saints, and it shall be that they will save him." "Hush, my daughter," said Father Ambrose, in a sterner tone. "Rebel not at the Divine Will, nor bring in opposition to it thine own unavailing and perishing love. Yvon de Mereac is dying, and no power of thine shall prevail to drag him back from the grave to which he hastens." "Will it not?" she cried softly, and the light of challenge and defiance which had shone in her eyes in the wizard’s hut brightened them again, as they met the rebukeful glance of the priest. Then, changing her tone to one of gentle pleading, "Father," she cried, "forgive one who is mad belike for very grief; and yet I pray thee not to say that Yvon shall die by the will of Heaven; for, see, he shall live in answer to my prayers. I——" her voice faltered—"I,—I have here a draught given me by a skilled and learned leech—a very elixir of life, father;—give it to him now,—now, ere it be too late, and truly thou shalt prove the truth of my words." The old man took the tiny phial, gazing suspiciously the while from it to the pale, agonized face near his own. "Daughter," he said solemnly, "what meaneth this? Whence came this phial?"