Consumed with hunger and thirst, still it was some time before he could summons up sufficient courage to creep forth from his lair. It was a day of dazzling sunshine, which illuminated even the depths of that grey and gloomy forest, and for a moment de Coray stood there, blinking, like some suddenly disturbed owl, before his sight grew accustomed to the brilliant glare. Presently, however, he became aware of a girl’s slim figure seated in the doorway of the hut, beside her spinning wheel. A pretty enough picture was thus formed—the dark background of forest, the quaint and dilapidated woodland hut, and stray rays of golden glory lighting up the figure in the foreground, in its picturesque dress and cap of a Breton peasant girl, a dress which set off to perfection the beauty of the face bent low over the humming wheel. It was in fact the face rather of a Madonna than a mere peasant, for the beauty lay not only, or chiefly, in the delicate oval of her cheeks, the regularity of her features, or the glossy luxuriance of the long plaits of black hair which fell over her shoulders, but in the soft and tender expression of her lips and dark eyes, which were swiftly raised to meet de Coray’s curious gaze. A sudden flush of joy, rather than maidenly bashfulness, crimsoned the girl’s cheeks as she rose hastily, and with a deep curtsy welcomed her visitor. To his surprise, de Coray found himself treated with a respect and gratitude wholly unlocked for. It was evident that her brother had breathed no word of his patron’s true character or the reason of his present difficulties, but instead had sung such praises into his simple sister’s ears that she looked upon de Coray in the light of some poor, persecuted saint. If is a strange experience thus to be taken for what one is too obviously not, and de Coray listened, half amused, half pleased, to her shy, faltering words of gratitude. The suspicions which had lurked around his heart as to the trustworthiness of his little ally faded away before the clear truth of his sister’s dark eyes, and involuntarily he made an effort to assume the rôle which she had given him so innocently. It was the wolf in sheep’s clothing once more, but this time the wolf was more anxious to hide his own dark skin than to devour the trusting lamb. So, after the meal was over, they sat there together, those two ill-assorted companions, whilst in still shy but more confiding sentences Gabrielle related to her visitor the simple story of her life. It was so simple, so humble, yet, as he sat there by her side, watching the innocent beauty of her face and listening to her murmured words, interrupted as they were by an occasional burst of bird song from the whispering woodlands around, it seemed a very idyll of beauty.