She breaks off. "Michel, have you something to say to me?" Her gaze puts me to confusion. I bend down and kiss her fingers; then, I find nothing to say to her, but this: "Shake hands, Jeannine." A feverish pressure, in which our souls, too, hold each other first. "Are we agreed?" She answers: "Yes." The tone of her voice is no longer veiled. I gaze on her. The suffering has suddenly vanished from her eyes. All the brilliance has returned to her complexion, just as it has to her glance. Again, the expression of which I had kept such a delightful recollection, Youth smiling at Happiness. Am I not assisting at a like transformation in myself? I, too, with eyes re-opened, and heart illuminated and revived. All hail to the life of light. "But, Jeannine," I ask her, at once, the past anguish throttling me again, "why have you made me suffer so much?" "It was you," she murmurs. "Why did you stop writing to me?" "Your last letter was so cold. You never came--there." "I understood that you would rather we did not see you till you were--quite cured." "An argument which I cannot refute. It's true--I did prefer that." "And then--" She lowers her voice. "There was that other matter----" "What matter?" "Which I mentioned to you." I do not understand. She continues in a more assured tone: "Well, we're ruined. We must sell everything. We don't even know if that will be enough. Grandmother has had no luck. All her interests are in the North. She is most dreadfully unhappy about it." So this was the reason. I am astounded, and stirred to the depths of my being. I hardly dare believe--I smile: "Really! There really was nothing but that?" "I got it into my head," she says. "I wanted to put you to the proof. You never answered me on that point." Nothing but this scruple. It was she who thought she had lost value! "All the same," she continues, sighing as if she had been pulled out of a fathomless abyss, "if Grandmother had not been determined--that there should be an explanation----" I cannot prevent myself saying: "I dreaded your grandmother." "Why?" "I was so much afraid she might put you off." "But why?" Jeannine repeats. Oh, that ingenuous tone. Oh, that clear gaze and pure forehead, behind which no mental reservations could revolve. Her fresh voice in my ear is like a bell ringing in the days of joy. I could weep--I could go down upon my knees. "You see," she says, gravely, "those of you who come back like this, you have so great a right to choose." THE END _A Selection from the Catalogue of_ G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS [Illustration] Complete Catalogues sent on application "_OVER THE TOP_" BY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER WHO _WENT_ _ARTHUR GUY EMPEY_ MACHINE GUNNER, SERVING IN FRANCE _12o 16 Illustrations and Diagrams $1.50 net By mail, $1.60_ TOGETHER WITH TOMMY'S DICTIONARY OF THE TRENCHES