“Love! Why should she not love him, since she loves nobody else!” cried madame Vervier, a deep exasperation thrilling in her voice. “And even if she did not love him, she cares quite enough. He is an admirable _parti_, this Jerry; I could not have chosen better had I been free to choose; he is an admirable _parti_ and can give her all that I cannot give; security, position, wealth. Such a marriage would atone for everything that my darling has lacked. And love would come; why should it not? It is, as you say, her pride only that stands in the way. Ah, if she would only trust me!” madame Vervier’s voice for the first time trembled, and looking up at her he saw tears in her eyes—“If she would only trust me! I could arrange it all.” He could not put before her the old, romantic protests. They had ceased to have validity for himself. All that madame Vervier said was true; truer far than she could know. Better, far better, that Alix should marry Jerry, not loving him, than be exposed to the perils of her life in France. She had loved him once; why not again? She was a child. She could not know her own heart. Her pride had had a dreadful blow; and she had come too near the fire; that was all. She must trust them; it was true. She must trust him and her mother. To this strange pass had France brought Giles. “I’ve come over to try to help you, you know,” he said. “I want it as much, I believe, as you want it. About her pride—Lady Mary, I’m sure, expects them to marry now.—She shall hear that.” “Ah, I felt that you had come to give me hope, Giles,” madame Vervier breathed, and her hand, for a moment, rested on his shoulder. “You are wonderful. You are _impayable_.—No one would believe in you.—If anyone can help, it is you. Alix will listen to you when she will listen to no one else.” “I believe she will. I’ll do my best,” Giles muttered. Yet, as he looked down at the grass, sitting there filially at madame Vervier’s feet, he knew that his heart was torn in two and that he longed to put his head down on her knees and tell her that no one in the world would ever love Alix as he himself did. CHAPTER VIII When Giles came down to breakfast next morning, Alix was already there, setting a bowl of nasturtiums on the blue-and-white cloth. He had not had a word with her last night when a sudden fall of rain had kept them all in the drawing-room, and he seized his opportunity. “Will you have a long walk with me this morning, Alix?” he said. “A really long one, you know. I want to go to Allongeville and see the church again; and then, oh, a long way further. Along the cliffs for ever so far.” She looked at her flowers, drawing a leaf forward here and there around the edge of the bowl, and he saw that she was troubled. But she said: “We will go to the church, at all events. Yes. I should like a walk very much.”