A ray of light streamed across the sward. Strange. The casement was open. How imprudent, and the dear ones in bed! In hot and anxious wrath Gabrielle was about to rush forward and remonstrate, when her steps were stayed. They were not in bed, for she could detect their voices prattling with the marquis and their governess. Stealing stealthily nearer she peeped in. Through her breast there shot a pain so sharp that she almost hoped to die. An affecting family group, of which _she_ should have been the centre--her legitimate place usurped by that wicked cruel woman! while she, the mistress of the house, was shivering without in the night air! A pariah--a leper--a loathsome thing--cast without the gates. What had she done--what had she done--to deserve this dreadful fate? The marquis was reclining in a low chair, with the complacent calm that comfort brings, while Aglaé, bending over, was carefully bandaging his hand. With what tenderness she folded and tightened the linen. He had injured himself in some slight way with a broken bottle, and was smilingly watching her work whilst hearkening to the babble of the little ones who, in wadded dressing-gowns, were toasting their pink toes before the fire. "You are so good to all of us," softly remarked Clovis. "Camille and Victor, say, do you appreciate mademoiselle?" "I try to be a mother to them," was her calm response. A mother! Clovis sighed and frowned, while the children cried out with blithe accord, "Aglaé? of course we love her." Camille, stealing up behind, passed her tiny arms about the portly waist, while Aglaé said, quietly, "Be still, my pet, or you will make me hurt your father." Victor--a wise boy--wagged his head sagely at the hissing hearth, and announced his conviction, "That mademoiselle had come down from heaven. But, never mind," he added, "when she gets back she'll have a higher place than before, on such a nice and pearly cloud." "How's that?" asked the marquis, amused. "You'll have a nice place, too," continued the urchin. "Every evening when I say my prayers, I ask heaven to be good to papa and mademoiselle." The marquise staggered away with fingers tight clasped over dry and burning eyes. "They are complete without me," she moaned, panting like a hunted animal. "There is no place for me! no place in all the world!" She tottered along the surrounding belt of green like one struck blind, till she came to the end where the moat was closed against the river.