Doubt, and danger, and suspicion of herself and of everything around her, had been closing about Helen. She had looked around her vainly into the blackness and found no guidance, no one even to tell her what she ought to do. She had no mother, nor any friend that absolutely belonged to her; nevertheless, when she flew into Mrs Ashton’s arms, the world had settled down again out of those giddy whirlings and confused eccentricities. She did not know what she might be called upon to do or to give up; but life had taken its natural shape again to the bewildered girl. She was not out of the labyrinth, but she had found the clue. After the arrival of these strangers, Charley Ashton’s father and step-mother, the village of Latour advanced daily in its knowledge of the ways of the English,--a most curious and interesting study, which gave great amusement to the cottagers. Mr and Mrs Ashton took the apartments in M. Goudron’s house which had been so sadly vacated by _l’Anglais_, he who had escaped from all his pursuers by a night journey more sudden than any of his previous flights. The Latourois had been very sorry for the man who had died among them; but they were very glad, as was natural, to forget that tragical conclusion, and to amuse themselves with all the difficulties about monsieur’s bath, and madame’s tea. The Curé looked with amused tolerance, yet contempt, at the costume of the clergyman, and at the droll pretences of that Protestant personage to be a priest like himself; and Madame Dupré, with an effort, for the sake of the benefactor who had liberated Baptiste, put up with the fastidiousness of the new visitors who turned up their noses at her _pot-au-feu_, and expected to find the refinements of the Trois Frères in the little _auberge_. “Talk of French cookery!” the new-comers cried; and they endeavoured to teach Margot how to “cook a joint” over her handful of charcoal, and to make English mustard out of the dark-complexioned powder which was all that was to be had in Latour. To see them walking about for ever, taking perpetual constitutionals, filled the villagers with wonder. But it would be impossible to describe the interest of Blanchette and Baptiste when there dawned upon them a pleasing certainty of the fate which was reserved for mademoiselle. Little Blanchette was the one who had divined it from the first. The day M. Charles had come to the _château_, that very day she had read it in his face. The loves of Cécile and Sir John afforded them no such sympathetic satisfaction. And indeed, Sir John took his departure immediately, carrying with him the valuable case which held Janey’s fortune. He washed his hands, he said, of the other matter. The Ashtons were on the spot to look after it for themselves, and if the father did not object to such a connection, of course it was no concern of his, who was merely a cousin. A cloud, a faint veil of separation, fell between