"Surely," said she to him, as now they talked alone and outside the general conversation that was going on, "surely it is better so. I have renounced him, it is true; willingly I will never see nor speak to him again; he and I are sundered for ever. Yet--yet--Bertie," and for the first time now, after so long, she called him frankly by the old, familiar name, "I could never have come to you had I been that other thing. You could not have taken such as I should have been for your wife." He looked at her, but answered no word. Then he sighed and turned away. They sat far into the evening talking and making plans, while still, through the warm summer night, the noise of the crowded city came in at their windows and nearly deafened them. And this is what they decided upon for the future. The troop to which Bertie Elphinston belonged in the Regiment of Picardy would be removed, later on, to quarters at St. Denis, and at about the same time Douglas would rejoin his regiment in Paris, while his brother Archibald was about to depart for St. Omer, where he should remain for some time. He had, he said, nothing more to do now in the world, since the restoration he had hoped so much from had failed altogether. Therefore, because at present there was no need for Kate to go to Paris, and because, also, her father became more and more ailing every day, they decided to remain at Amiens, to live quietly there in lodgings, and to have at least the friendship of the two young men to cheer them. There was still a little money left from the sale of Doyle Fane's fencing school in Paris--indeed, it had never been touched since Kate's marriage--which would suffice for their wants, especially since Amiens was cheaper than Paris to reside in. Then, when the time came, they would all move on to the capital, and there, as they told each other, try to forget the black, bitter year which had come and separated them all from the happy life they had once led together. "Only," said Bertie once again that night to her, ere he went back to the Citadel, "only, still we are parted; the gulf is ever between us. O Kate, Kate! if it were not for that." And once more for reply she whispered: "'Tis better so, better than if it had been as he, that other, said. At least I am honest; if--if freedom ever comes, no need for you to blush for me." "Nay," he said, "none could do that, knowing all. For myself, Kate, I would it had been as the wretch said. Then the bar would not be there." "But the blot would." With which words she left him and the others, going with her father to the rooms prepared for them.