“Ah, but it has come in the other way, too,” she said, looking round at him in the pale shadow of her sunshade;—“though I have forestalled that calamity, and a calamity forestalled is always endurable. André and I are parted.” Madame Vervier continued to look at him steadily. “I have told him that this Summer is the end. He still believes—or tries to believe—that he loves me; but he consents. I knew that he would consent.” Giles walked beside her filled with a confusion of pain and pity. Never before had madame Vervier openly admitted her relation to André; admitted it to Owen’s brother. “He doesn’t look like partings,” was all he found, most helplessly, to say. “Partings, at his age, are the preludes to beginnings; and André has the gift of looks. He is, perhaps, not quite at ease; but he has wisdom—our French wisdom, Giles. His mother, already, is arranging a marriage for him. As soon as our rupture is definitely known, he will be able to settle himself in life;—_se ranger_,” said madame Vervier. “And he will be glad to be settled; he will be glad to be married to a charming young girl whom he has known since boyhood;—a young girl,” madame Vervier continued in her steady voice, “whom your madame Marigold met when she came to France last Spring.” “You know all about that, then?” Giles muttered. “How should I not know?” madame Vervier returned. He saw her maimed for life. Yes; it had, with André, gone as deep as that. She had unflinchingly performed the surgical operation, severed the limb and bound the arteries. He saw her bandaged, spotted with blood, drained of joy; but tranquil; moving forward. “It was time,” she said as if to herself, looking before her. “When Alix returned to me, when I saw what I had done to her, I knew that it was time.” He could not think of one thing to say to her; not one word of comfort or approbation. He would have liked to say that she would be happier; but he did not believe that she would be. He would have liked to say that she had behaved worthily; but the note of moral appraisal was repellent to his imagination. And under everything went that bitter memory of who André was, and whose successor. “But there were further reasons for André’s acquiescence,” said madame Vervier suddenly.