One Saturday afternoon, when the rain was falling dismally, she received him with an embarrassment she could scarcely conceal. The usual heightened colour no longer gave youth to her cheek; an anxious frown knitted her candid brows; and there was no laughter in her eyes. He looked at her questioningly. Was anything the matter with Jean? But Jean answered the question for himself by running down the passage and springing like a puppy into Aristide's arms. Anne turned her face away, as if the sight pained her, and, pleading a headache and the desire to lie down, she left the two together. Returning after a couple of hours with the tea-tray, she found them on the floor breathlessly absorbed in the erection of card pagodas. She bit her lip and swallowed a sob. Aristide jumped up and took the tray. Was not the headache better? He was so grieved. Jean must be very quiet and drink up his milk quietly like a hero because Auntie was suffering. Tea was a very subdued affair. Then Anne carried off Jean to bed, refusing Aristide's helpful ministrations. It was his Saturday and Sunday joy to bath Jean amid a score of crawly tin insects which he had provided for the child's ablutionary entertainment, and it formed the climax of Jean's blissful day. But this afternoon Anne tore the twain asunder. Aristide looked mournfully over the rain-swept common through the leaded panes, and speculated on the enigma of woman. A man, feeling ill, would have been only too glad for somebody to do his work; but a woman, just because she was ill, declined assistance. Surely women were an intellect-baffling sex. She came back, having put Jean to bed. "My dear friend," she said, with a blurt of bravery, "I have something very hard to say, but I must say it. You must go away from Beverly Stoke." "Ah!" cried Aristide, "is it I, then, that give you a headache?" "It's not your fault," she said gently. "You have been everything that a loyal gentleman could be--and it's because you're a loyal gentleman that you must go." "I don't understand," said he, puzzled. "I must go away because I give you a headache, although it is not my fault." "It's nothing to do with headaches," she explained. "Don't you see? People around here are talking." "About you and me?" "Yes," said Miss Anne, faintly. "_Saprelotte!_" cried Aristide, with a fine flourish, "let them talk!" "Against Jean and myself?" The reproach brought him to his feet. "No," said he. "No. Sooner than they should talk, I would go out and strangle every one of them. But it is infamous. What do they say?" "How can I tell you? What would they say in your own country?" "France is France and England is England." "And a little cackling village is the same all the world over. No, my dear friend--for you are my dear friend--you must go back to London, for the sake of my good name and Jean's." "But let us leave the cackling village." "There are geese on every common," said Anne.