"We had no discussions of any kind. She was particularly sweet, and spent nearly the whole evening with me, as you know. Is it something about her husband, do you think, which is troubling her? But it cannot be that, because in her letter of two days ago she said the proceedings had been started and she would be free perhaps by Christmastime, as all was being hurried through." Moravia gave an exclamation of surprise. "Sabine is certainly very strange. Can you believe it? She has never mentioned the matter to me since we returned, and once when I spoke of it, she put the subject aside. She did not 'wish to remember it,' she said." "It is evidently that, then, and we must have patience with the dear little girl. The husband must have been an unmitigated wretch to have left such a deep scar upon her life." "But she never saw him from the day after she was married!" Moravia exclaimed; and then pulled herself up short, glancing at Henry furtively. What had Sabine told him? Probably no more than she had told her--she felt the subject was dangerous ground, and it would be wiser to avoid further discussion upon the matter. So she remarked casually: "No, after all, I do not believe it has anything to do with the husband; it is just a mood. She has always had moods for years. I know she is looking forward awfully to our all going to her for Christmas. Then you will be able to clear away all your clouds." But this conversation left Henry very troubled, and Pere Anselme's words about the cinders still being red kept recurring to him with increasing pain. Sabine had been at Heronac for ten days when the old priest got back to his flock. It was toward the end of November, and the weather was one raging storm of rain and wind. The surf boiled round the base of the Castle and the waves rose as giant foes ready to attack. It comforted the mistress of it to stand upon the causeway bridge and get soaking wet--or to sit in one of the mullioned windows of her great sitting-room and watch the angry water thundering beneath. And here the Pere Anselme found her on the morning after his return. She rose quickly in gladness to meet him, and they sat down together again. She spoke her sympathy for this bereavement which had caused his absence, but he said with grave peace: "She is well, my sister--a martyr in life, she has paid her debt. I have no grief." So they talked about the garden, and of the fisher-folk, and their winter needs. There had been a wreck of a fishing boat, and a wife and children would be hungry but for the kindness of their Dame d'Heronac. Then there was a pause--not one of those calm, happy pauses of other days, when each one dreamed, but a pause wrought with unease. The Cure's old black eyes had a questioning expression, and then he asked: "And what is it, my daughter? Your heart is not at rest." But Sabine could not answer him. Her long-controlled anguish won the day and, as once before, she burst into a passion of tears.