“This isn’t a real story, Little Mademoiselle; it is only a fancy of mine. I was thinking to-night, as I walked home in the sunset, of a young lad of noble birth, who lived many years ago, here in France, in the time of the long-ago King Louis XI. It was the time of knights in armor and of deep dungeons. It was a time like the present, when every man’s hand was raised against his brother. All the long way home it seemed as though this young lad walked beside me. He was clothed in blue and silver and his hair was like the corn when it is ripe. There was a falcon on his wrist because he was one of the king’s pages of the hunt. Many a night he had held a torchlight for the king and had shouted, 'Hallali!’ when the greedy pack caught the poor stag. He was a gallant youth and a brave one, though he was so young that he had never seen sixteen years. He loved to run with his fellow pages through the forest at dawn and to throw the javelin with them at sunset. He was also a true and loyal knight. One day, because he loved his king, he was carried away to a dungeon and no one knew where he had gone.” Dian stopped speaking and sat looking into the dying fire, his hands spread out upon his knees. Jean ran over to a wooden box by the door and came back with his arms filled with fagots. He threw them on the fire and the sudden burst of flames made the pewter utensils above the mantel shine like diamonds and brought out the crimson gleam of the woven rug that covered Mother Barbette’s four-poster bed. Pince Nez, the crow, who had been asleep with his head cocked on one side, woke suddenly and gave a solemn croak. When he croaked Mother Barbette gave a little start and sat up. She had been fast asleep and had not heard more than a word or two of what Dian had been saying. [Illustration: Pince Nez] Jean ran back to the settle after he had put on the wood and sat down in his place by the shepherd’s side. He smiled across at Marie Josephine with his merry black eyes. “We like the story, do we not, Little Mademoiselle?” he asked her. She sat looking down at her hands which were folded in her lap. She did not answer him or look up at him, for there were tears in her eyes and she did not want any one to see them. While Dian had been talking she had been thinking with all her might. She had begun to suspect that he was speaking of Lisle, and as he went on she became sure of it. “There was a cowherd on the lands where the young page lived,” Dian went on. “This cowherd was sorely grieved at the trouble that had come to his master. He thought of the page night and day. He wished more than he had ever wished anything that he might find a way to rescue him, and he whispered the wish as a prayer to the sun and the stars.” A knock broke in on the quiet earnestness of the shepherd’s voice and the next instant the door opened and Neville came inside. He was wind-blown and breathless.