"That is ungenerous, Monsieur. You do not think of the poor boatmen who would go to the bottom with you. They are not sulky young men who have quarrelled with harmless women. The Race of Alderney will do without them; _dame_! it may afford to wait for you too." If Alain had but caught the look with which these final words were accompanied! But he was still sitting in the distant darkness, with his moistened eyes bent obstinately on the ground. And so the misunderstanding widened and deepened; and presently Rose returned. Taking in the situation with a rapid glance, she passed through the room and out into the buttery, whence she soon returned with the materials of a modest supper. "We must be our own domestics," she said with an attempt at lightness: but the attempt was hollow; a cloud seemed to fill the low room, and press upon the inmates. The _three_ sate down, but neither of the young people did much justice to her hospitality. After supper she held a brief consultation with Alain; and after giving him a bag of gold and a letter for her husband, dismissed him, to rest if not to slumber, in the chamber that stood at the head of the stair on which the door in the wainscot opened. Then she and Marguerite retired by the other door to their own part of the upper floor, where I fear the young lady received a lecture before she went to her virgin couch. ACT III. THE STATES. Next morning the Militia Captain left before the house was awake, to return to Lempriere in London. When the ladies went, later in the forenoon, to arrange the chamber in which he had passed the night, they found that the bed had not been used during Le Gallais' occupation. A copy of Ben Jonson's Poems lay on the table; by the side of which were pen and ink, and a burnt-out candle. On opening the book, Mdlle. de St. Martin found some lines written on the fly-leaf, which ran as follows:-- "What tho' the floures be riche and rare of hue and fragrancie, What tho' the giver be kinde and fair, they have no charme for me. The wreathe whose brightest budde is gone is not ye wreathe I'de prise: I'de pluck another, and so passe on, with unregardfull eyes. And so the heart whose sweet resorte an hundred rivalls share May yielde a moment's passing sporte, but Love's an alyen there." "He is unpolite, my sister," cried Marguerite, laughing. "But that is only because he is sore. The wounded bird has moulted a feather in his empty nest." "All the same, he is flown," answered Mdme. de Maufant, gravely. "_N'importe_," answered the damsel. "Leave him to me. I can whistle him back when I want him--if I ever do." Leaving the ladies to the discussion of the topic thus set afoot, let us turn to the more prosaic combinations of the rougher, if not harder, sex. _Majora canamus!_