Across the sunny green, her eyes turned to the ground, her hands clasped to her mouth, her whole manner significant of a wrapt introspection, passed M. de St Denys’ little pale lodge-keeper; and, as she went on her way, men bowed as at the passing of the Host; children caught at their mothers’ skirts and looked from covert, wonder-eyed; the fashionable ladies scuttled from their berline and knelt in the dust, and snatched at and kissed the hem of the _dévote’s_ garment. She paid no heed, but glided on decorously, and vanished from Ned’s field of observation. “She is a poet,” repeated that young man calmly. The student crossed himself. “She is a priestess, monsieur,” said he. “She reads in the breviary of her white soul such mysteries as man has never guessed at.” “That I can quite understand; and it will be an auspicious day for Méricourt when they start to build a commemorative chapel.” “It is even now discussed. Already they have the sacred tree fenced in, and the ground about it consecrated. Already the spot is an object of pilgrimage to the pious.” “As once to the Club of Nature’s Gentry--the ravishing club, oh, my poor Boppard! Alas, the whirligig of time! But, one thing I should like to know: to what did Mademoiselle Legrand look for a livelihood when her master ran away?” “Doubtless to God, monsieur. And now, the faithful shower gifts at her feet.” CHAPTER XVI. Pretty early on the morning following his arrival in Méricourt, Ned strolled up the easy slope leading to the lodge of the chateau, and found himself lingering over against the embowered gates with a queer barm of humour working upon a commixture of emotions in his breast. Now it seemed that his very neighbourhood to the Madonna of his memory was effecting a climatic change both within and without him. For the first, little runnels of irresponsible gaiety gushed in his veins; for the second, the weather, that had been indifferent fine during his journey, appeared to have broken all at once into full promise of summer. It was not, indeed, that his sympathies enlarged in the near presence of one who might hold herself as a little moon of desire. It was rather, perhaps, because in the one-time surrender of her very soul to his inspection, she had made of him a confederate in certain unspoken secrets, the knowledge of which was to him like a sense of proprietorship in a picturesque little country-seat. Yet here, it may be acknowledged, he indulged something a dangerous mood.