This, it seemed--a white figure that stole from the bedroom--crept into the firelight--crouched down on the floor beside him and took his unresisting hand. He felt the tremulous clutch, and dared not move. He felt his hand kissed, pressed against warm, bare flesh--felt a hot trickle lace it. The paroxysm of emotion ceased, and then suddenly she spoke, whispering-- “It can never be?” “Never,” he said low. He knew, through the utmost conviction of his stricken soul, that it was all wrong and impossible--that he _must_ answer as he had done. He felt a quiver pass through her frame. She spoke again in a moment. “My sin--I know it--holds us apart. I have not atoned, and, until I have, it holds us apart. Do you think, monsieur, Baptiste has forgiven me?” “I think he has, Nicette.” “But you cannot--not yet, though I love you so dearly. Perhaps I should not love you so well if you could. Yet it seems a strange thing to me why you helped me at all.” He half rose from his chair; but she gently detained him, and he sank down again. “You must go back to bed, Nicette. We will talk it all over to-morrow.” “To-morrow?” she said. “Shall we be any nearer one another to-morrow?” He shook his head. A very little sigh escaped her. “You will be kind and generous to me, I know; but you will give me no moment again such as this I have stolen. And I have stolen your bed too, monsieur; but you must take it from me now, and lie in the warm nest I have made for you--it is such a little of myself, it will not matter to you--and _I_ will sleep here before the fire.” He got now resolutely to his feet. “Nicette, it is folly. You must return to bed, I tell you. I am going out again for the night. To-morrow, I say, we will try to settle matters for the best.” She clung to him yet as he moved, letting him even pull her a step forward on her knees. “One thing--just one last thing. I shall like you to know, when I am gone--some day, when I am gone--that I died a maid.” Her face, in the shadow, was turned up to him. The firelight made an aureole of her hair. He could feel her whole body heaving against his hand. “Will you kiss me once?” she said. He was conscious of a choking in his throat, and beat down the emotion fiercely. “No,” he muttered; “it would imply something that must not be.” She sank back away from him. Without another word he turned and left her. In the street the frost snapped at him like the very watchdog of desolation. He huddled his cloak about him with a shudder as he faced it. “It is for the best,” he thought. “To be away--from the terror of my own weakness! Any _auberge_ will serve for the night.” He strode a few paces, crunching over the snow, and stopped. “I might, at least, have quitted her of the worst of her remorse. It would have been a little return for such love--my God, such love!” Should he go back at once and tell her that she was guiltless of the little brother’s actual death?