And she was gone, a Psyche glimmering away through the dark which strove to cling to her. I stood for a moment, eyes and heart straining after her. Then I turned as the guard came up. “At your service, monsieur,” said I. Chapter XXVI The Chapel Prison Before the door of the chapel stood a bent old figure hooded in a red shawl. Muttering, and with bowed head, it poked in the dust with a staff. When we were close at hand it straightened alertly; and old Mother Pêche’s startling eyes flashed into mine. I could have kissed the strange hawk face, so glad was I to see it. And I held out my hand, to be clutched eagerly. “My blessings be upon thee, chéri Master Paul!” she cried. “Thank you, mother!” said I. “Your love is very dear to me; and for your blessings, I need them all.” “Come, monsieur,” said Waldron, at the steps. “A word, a word,” she begged, half of him, half of me, “before thou go in there and these old eyes, perhaps, see thee never again.” “Grant me one moment, I beg you, monsieur,” said I earnestly to Waldron. “She is a dear old friend and retainer of my family.” He nodded, and turned half aside in patient indifference. “Listen,” she whispered, thrusting her face near mine, and talking rapidly, that the guard, who were but clumsy with our French speech, might not understand. “Hast thou the stone safe?” “Surely,” said I. “Then here, take this,” she muttered, laying a silken tress of hair in my hand. In the dusk I could not note its colour; but I needed not light to tell me whose it was. My blood ran hot and cold beneath it. The pulse throbbed furiously in my fingers as they closed upon it. “I clipped it under the new moon, the right moon, with my own hand, for thee, Master Paul.” “Did she know it was for me?” I asked, in a sort of ecstasy. “No, no!” answered the old dame impatiently; “but she gave it to me—laughing because I wanted it. I said that I was going far away with these my people,”—sweeping her hand toward the village,—“while she, perhaps, would stay. Strangely she regarded that _perhaps_, Master Paul. But here it is—and I have put a spell upon it while waiting for thee to come; and it will draw, it will draw her; she cannot let it go very far off, as long as she lives. It is for thee, chéri, I did it.” Now, how I loved her for it, even while deriding the magic, I need not tell. Yet I was angry with her for explaining. That made me seem to take a base advantage in retaining the treasure. Sorrowfully I said: “I cannot keep it, mother. That were treason to her. I will have naught of her but what her own heart gives me.” And I held out the precious lock to her again, yet all the time grasped it tightly enough, no doubt. “Why, chéri,” she laughed cunningly, “where is the treason? _You_ don’t believe an old wife’s foolish charms!”