_Sacrifice!_ That meant—the Princess meant—that they had parted. _Sacrifice!_ What did the fatuous woman know? Evidently, from the whole tone of the letter, it had been no light thing with either of them, no passing fancy such as he had insisted on believing it on Lucienne’s part. Well, Madame Elisabeth might have been duped too. Since there had been so much between them, there might have been more. How should the Princess know? And that terrible thought, which had hitherto spared him, raised its snake-like head and looked him every moment a little nearer in the face. What exactly had been Louis’ relations with Lucienne? CHAPTER XXXIII AT THE FORD “You let him try to give The story of our love and ignorance, And the brief madness and the long despair— You let him plead all this, because your code Of honour bids you hear before you strike.” —BROWNING, _A Blot in the Scutcheon_. The Vicomte de Saint-Ermay whistled softly as he went down to the river next morning. This, the last of the month, was one of those warm, sunny days in February when the spring seems so much nearer than it really is, and one forgets that March winds have yet to sweep between. But the young grass was already thrusting aside the dead leaves. The rough path which Louis was pursuing through the thicket brought him at last to the little ford, where the bright water lapped a level shore; on the other side the bank rose gently to wooded heights. The Vicomte stopped, for it was a spot beloved of his childhood, where both he and Gilbert had known the dear delight of wading over when the stream was swollen and foothold difficult. For a moment he stood still, marvelling at the heat, and then flung himself yawning on the grass against a log, to lie there thinking vaguely how charming M. des Graves could be when he chose, and wondering why he had so chosen last night, alone with him in the library. The stream rippled past; in the thicket a thrush broke into song. How little the place had changed; even the unstable water seemed to swirl about in exactly the same spots as of old. He heard steps coming through the copse. “Hallo!” he said, looking up. “Isn’t it hot? Do you remember this place? I was once carried down by the stream as far as the bend . . . What years ago! I forget if you ever fell in.” Gilbert stood there in the sunlight and said nothing. And as he looked at the young man lying idly stretched on the grass, his hands behind his head, the last spasm of yesterday’s deadly rage took him by the throat, and for a moment there danced before his eyes the black specks of a physical faintness. The spasm passed, and left him more coldly master of himself than he had ever been in his life.