While he was speaking he had stepped to where Chavernay's blade lay on the sward, and had picked it up, and now, as he made an end of speaking, he handed Chavernay the rapier. Chavernay took it, and sent it home in its sheath half defiantly. "Fair lady, I ask your pardon," he said, bowing very reverentially to Gabrielle. "Let me call myself ever your servant." He turned and gave Lagardere a salutation that was more hostile than amiable, and then recrossed the bridge in his airiest manner as one that is a lord of fortune. Lagardere stood silent, almost gloomy, looking at the ground. Gabrielle regarded him for a moment timidly, and then, advancing, softly placed a hand upon his shoulder. "You are not angry with me?" she whispered. Lagardere turned to her and forced himself to smile cheerfully. "Angry--with you? How could that be possible?" He was silent for a moment, then he asked: "Do you know that gentleman?" Gabrielle shook her head. "I saw him for the first time to-day, not very long ago, when I was speaking to Flora. I had come out for a moment when she called to me, and he came over the bridge and took us unawares." Lagardere looked at her thoughtfully. "Could you love such a man as he?" he asked, gravely. "He is young, he is brave, he is witty; he might well win a girl's heart." Gabrielle returned Lagardere's earnest look with a look of surprise. "He is a noble. I am a poor girl." Lagardere smiled wistfully. "How if you were no longer to be a poor girl, Gabrielle? How if this visit to Paris were to change our fortunes?" Gabrielle looked at him curiously. "Why have we come to Paris, Henri? I thought there was danger in Paris?" "There was danger in Paris," Lagardere said, slowly--"grave danger. But I have seen a great man, and the danger has vanished, and you and I are coming to the end of our pilgrimage." "The end of our pilgrimage?" echoed Gabrielle. "What is going to happen to us?" "Wonderful things," Lagardere said, lightly--"beautiful things. You shall know all about them soon enough." To himself he whispered: "Too soon for me." Then he addressed the girl again, blithely: "When I took you to Madrid you saw the color of the court, you heard the music of festivals. Did you not feel that you were made for such a life?" Gabrielle answered instantly: "Yes, for that life--or any life--with you." Lagardere protested: "Ah, but without me." Gabrielle's graceful being seemed to stiffen a little, and her words gave an absolute decision: "Nothing without you, Henri." Lagardere seemed to tempt the girl with his next speech: "Those women you saw had palaces, had noble kinsfolk, had mothers--" Gabrielle was not to be tempted from her faith. "A mother is the only treasure I envy them," she said, firmly. Lagardere looked at her strangely, and again questioned her. "But suppose you had a mother, and suppose you had to choose between that mother and me?"