Did I say that in this companionship of ours little Gaston made one of three? That is a mistake. Except when within the precincts of the Château garden he made one of four. That I have hitherto forgotten Brother Paulus has but one reasonable excuse. Mademoiselle had pushed him from my thoughts. And is it a reasonable excuse? Brother Paulus would be the first to admit it--Brother Paulus of the grey withered face and shining eyes, the man's deep heart, the woman's tenderness, the child's direct simplicity and ignorance of the world. What wrongs, what sorrows, his youth had suffered, God and his own spirit alone knew. With him, as with the grapes of his own Provence, the crushing had but set free sweetness and strength, mellowed by age to a cordial whereby the weak grew strong, and they who fainted by the way took heart of grace to pack afresh their burdens on their backs and go cheerily forward. So, at least, Mademoiselle Suzanne has said. I only know that a man's brave heart beat under the monk's black frock, and that in a time of trial Gaspard Hellewyl's perplexity of soul found frail Brother Paulus an unshaken rock of strength. CHAPTER XX WHAT HAPPENED AT THE GREY LEAP There were four of us, then, who rode through the whin brakes, under the pines and out upon the rocks beyond. Indeed, there were six, for Hugues and the big Spanish fellow they called 'Tuco followed us, but that we did not know at the time. Brother Paulus led the way with Gaston; Mademoiselle followed, and I, because the path was in places too narrow for two abreast, brought up the rear. Of us all, I think Brother Paul was the merriest; though, such is the alchemy of the hills, in us all the cares of life were transmuted into gaiety. Brother Paul forgot the weariness of age, Gaston the penalty of being born great, I that I was sworn to add to his penalties for his own good, Mademoiselle, the sorrows and dangers of Navarre. She went further, she even forgot that she was nothing more than Suzanne D'Orfeuil, nurse and _gouvernante_ to the Count de Foix, forgot everything but that the skies were blue, the sun warm, the air thin and sweet. Care was behind us at Morsigny, and for that day the troubled woman entered afresh into her too early lost heritage of girlhood. Woman! Man! We were neither one nor other. The horses had been left behind in charge of a goat-herd under the shadow of the last pines, and we were four children scrambling up the rocks with Gaston the oldest, because the most gravely serious, of the four. In a child, the joy and wonder of living are at times too great to find expression in laughter.