"Forgive me!" she cried; "you are right, of course. Oh, I fear I have done wrong in hampering you! But I am strong, truly, and enduring as most men, Monsieur." "Yes," I answered, "but to do one thing strenuously all day long, and for days thereafter, that is hard. I believe you can do it, or I should have been mad indeed to bring you. But you must let me advise you at the beginning. For this first day, rest often and save yourself as much as possible. By this means you will be able to do better to-morrow, and better still the day after. By the other means, you will be able to do little to-morrow most likely, and perhaps nothing the day after." "Well," she said, turning her head partly around, so that I could see the gracious profile, "tell me, Monsieur, when to work and when to rest. I will obey. It is a lucky soldier, I know, who has the Seigneur de Briart to command him." [Illustration: Turning her head partly around, so that I could see the gracious profile] "But I fear, Madame," said I, "that discipline would sadly suffer if he had often such soldiers to command." To this she made no reply. I saw that she leaned back in her place and changed her posture, so as to fulfil my wish and rest herself to the best advantage. I thought my words over. To me they seemed to have that savour of compliment which I would now avoid. I felt that here, under these strange circumstances, in an intimacy which might by and by be remembered by her with some little confusion, but which now, while she had no thought but for the rescue of the little one, contained no shadow of awkwardness for her clear and earnest soul,--I felt that here I must hold myself under bonds. The play of graceful compliment, such as I would have practised in her drawing-room to show her the courtliness of my breeding, must be forsworn. The admiration, the devotion, the worship, that burned in my eyes whensoever they dwelt upon her, must be strictly veiled. I must seem to forget that I am a man and my companion the fairest of women. Yes, I kept telling myself, I must regard her as a comrade only, and a follower, and a boy. I must be frank and careless in my manner toward her; kind, but blunt and positive. She will think nothing of it now, and will blush the less for it by and by, when the child is in her arms again, and she can once more give her mind to little matters. And so I schooled myself; and as I watched her I began to realize more and more, with a delicious warming of my heart, what instant need I had of such schooling if I would not have her see how I was not at all her captain, but her bondsman.