We ate everything, cake, fruit, and candy; we drank the wine (heroic young souls!), and, trembling with excitement, we lit the cigarettes,--a more difficult matter than we had imagined. I had not waited until this point to dree my weird. Excessive fatigue is but an indifferent preparation for unwonted indulgence; and I was a sickly child, to whom only the simplicity and regularity of school life lent a semblance of health. Ominous sensations were warning me of my deadly peril; but I held straight on. Suddenly Marie, who had been smoking with silent fortitude, said sweetly: "It's a shame Viola shouldn't have one of her own cigarettes. I'll give her my second." "She can have one of mine, too," said Emily. "Thank you," returned Viola hastily. "I don't want any. I gave them to you." "Oh, do try one!" urged Marie. "Yes, do!" said Tony sardonically. "Do try one, Viola. They are anxious enough to get rid of them." She flung this taunt at the crowd, but her eye met mine with a challenge I would not evade. "I want my second one," I said. Valour met valour. "So do I," smiled Tony. From this point, my recollections are vague. We talked about Madame Davide, and whether she really did not understand English, or only pretended not to,--a point which had never been satisfactorily settled. We talked about Madame Bouron, and her methods (which we deemed unworthy) of finding out all she knew. I added little to the sprightliness of the conversation, and after a while I slipped away. On the stairs a kindly fate threw me into the arms of Sister O'Neil, who had charge of the vestry, and who was carrying piles of clean linen to the dormitories. She was a friendly soul (nearly all the lay sisters were good to us), and she took possession of me then and there. When I was safe in bed,--collapsed but comforted,--she sprinkled me with holy water, and tucked the light covers carefully around me. "Lie quiet now," she said. "I'll go tell Madame Rayburn where you are, and that there was no time to ask leave of anybody." I did lie very quiet, and, after a while, fell into a doze, from which the sound of footsteps woke me. Some one was standing at the foot of my bed. It was Tony. She looked a trifle more sallow than usual, but was grinning cheerfully. "I'm better now," she said. The delicate emphasis on the _now_ was like a condensed epic. "So am I," I murmured confidentially. Tony disappeared, and in a few minutes was back again, comfortably attired in a dressing gown and slippers. She perched herself on the foot of my bed. "Hasn't it been a perfect _congé_?" she sighed happily. (Oh, blessed memory of youth!) "If you'd seen Madame Duncan, though, when I came stealing out of the chapel,--without a veil, too. 'What does this mean, Tony?' she said. 'It isn't possible that'"-- There was an abrupt pause. "Well?" I asked expectantly, though I had heard it all several times already; but Tony's eyes were fixed on the little pile of clean linen lying on my chair.