La Vireville, in his turn, surveyed the visitor perched on his body. Anne's legs, in their blue pantaloons, stuck out straight in front of him on the bed; the shoes at the end of them looked ridiculously small. His curls, falling on his deep ruffle, seemed heavier and a little longer than of yore, and the sun was busily employed in gilding them. For the first time, therefore, La Vireville was really conscious of the presence of that luminary. Anne-Hilarion was the first to break the silence. "Did Papa tell you in his letter," he inquired, "that a lady came into the garden to ask for you, M. le Chevalier?" "A lady!" exclaimed Fortuné. "What garden, child--here?" "Oh no," replied Anne. "The garden in the Square at home. It is a long time ago now. I was there, and John Simms, and I had leaves in my cart--dead leaves--and she came in, all in black, and she asked if you had come back from France, and I said no, and then I cried, and I think she cried too, and she kissed me, and then Grandpapa came, and----" "Stop a moment!" cried La Vireville, who was not without experience of the volume of detail Anne could pour forth when once he was embarked on the tide of narration. "What was the lady like? Was she young?" "She was not so old as Elspeth," pronounced the Comte de Flavigny, after due thought. La Vireville gave a rather shaken laugh. Had this impossible thing really happened? Anne-Hilarion never lied. But--it must have been someone else! "You did not learn her name, I suppose, child?" he asked, his heart beginning to thud. "Yes," responded Anne. "I asked Grandpapa afterwards, because I liked her. She was called the Comtesse de Préfontaine--or perhaps it was Guéfontaine." La Vireville's heart missed a couple of beats, then pounded harder than ever, seeming to shake his whole body--a humiliating experience. But for his present physical condition, however, no doubt he would not have gasped for breath as he did, nor would the colour have come and gone like a woman's in his hollow cheeks. Nevertheless, as both these things happened, Anne-Hilarion looked at him in a little dismay. "You are--do you feel ill, M. le Chevalier?" he asked solicitously. "No--yes," stammered Fortuné, lifting himself on his elbow. "No, child, don't move! It is not that you are . . . too heavy." He drew a long breath, closed his eyes, and dropped back on his pillows. "What did you and Grandpapa tell Mme. de Guéfontaine?" he asked, after a moment. "Grandpapa told her, I think, that the Republican soldiers had shot you at that place--Quiberon. . . . M. le Chevalier," continued Anne, leaning with very wide-open eyes towards him, and thus still further contributing to the discomfort of the leg on which he was situated, "did they really and truly shoot you?" "Well," said Fortuné, in a dreamy voice, "they did and they did not. Anyhow, here I am, you see." He reopened his eyes.