If a mountain had been taken from the shoulders of poor M. Belmont, he could not have felt more relief than he did on hearing these few words. He simply could not contain his joy. Leaping up from his seat, he slapped his friend on the shoulder, and exclaimed: "Well, Bouchette, we shall have a glass of wine, some of my best old Burgundy. Your visit has done me a world of good." The little grey eyes of Batoche were fixed like gimlets on the wall opposite, at the line where it touched the ceiling. There was a glassy light in them. He had gone off suddenly into one of his absent moods. But it was only for a moment. Recovering himself, he too rose abruptly from his seat, bringing his right arm down with a bang upon his thigh, and muttering a few inarticulate words. The wine was quaffed with pledges and _bons mots_. A second round of glasses was indulged in, and when the interview closed at length, Bouchette thundered out of the house as heartily as he had entered it. "Well!" exclaimed M. Belmont, closing the door and confronting Batoche in the hall. "Well!" replied the other quietly. "What do you say?" "What do I say? I say that this man will never speak a word of what has happened. So you may rest easy." "And what do you think of himself?" "He is a great man." "And a good one." "A true Knight of St. Louis." "A friend of his countrymen." "Yes. I admire his generosity and magnanimity, and I admire the wonderful instinct of Zulma Sarpy who gauged him so well that she wrung his liberation from me." When Pauline descended from her private apartments after a long day's rest, and was made acquainted with so much of the sailor's visit as concerned herself, she was deeply moved, and the more that she observed her father's intense gratification. The whole episode imparted a happiness to that house such as it had not enjoyed for many days previous, and such as it was not destined to enjoy later. IX. PAULINE'S DEVELOPMENT. Insensibly a change was coming over Pauline. The sharp, varied experiences of the past month had a decisive schooling influence upon her. It is often the case that simple untutored natures like her develop more rapidly in days of crisis than characters fashioned of sterner material. There is no preliminary work of undoing to be gone through. The ground is ready prepared for strong and lasting impressions. The process of creation is hampered by no obstacles. There is, on the contrary, a latent spontaneity which accelerates its action.