The eyes were dangerous, the lips haughty, but Jeannette's love for her charge overcame the long reserve and terror of those last months. "Mamzelle, mamzelle, listen to me! He is a good man, and he loves you well. Without him you will pine a----" "Pine, Jeannette? _Pine?_" Suddenly she caught the old servant's wrists between her small, hot hands. "Jeannette," she whispered passionately, "never speak so again! Do you hear? _I_ pine--_I!_ Am I sad, Jeannette? Answer me! Are my spirits low?" "N--no, mamzelle." "Do I not work and read and play as always?" "Y--yes, mamzelle." "Do I ever droop?" "No----" "Or sigh?" "No----" "Or weep?" "No----" "Then what made you speak so, Jeannette?" "I--I do not know, mamzelle." Stéphanie dropped her wrist. Her eyes were burning, her cheeks flushed. "Then never dare to speak so again," she said, and turned haughtily away. And almost directly she burst into a gay little song; and Jeannette, standing listening, felt the slow tears of age dropping one by one down her cheeks. * * * * * In London Hugh Michelhurst shouldered his way amongst the busy throng in Piccadilly, and in the fog his thoughts turned to the old sunny garden at Ancelles. He sighed, then frowned as if such sighing displeased him. His mouth took a bitter curve as his thoughts wandered back to the last time he had stood on the little sunny paths amongst the roses, with Stéphanie at his side. [Illustration: G. G. Manton She turned away with a scornful smile.] Perhaps it was because his thoughts so often wandered in that direction that his face seemed to have grown harder, his mouth sterner. "Four months!" he murmured, "twelve months in a year--say, forty years--long years! Forty years like these last four months!" "Forty years, forty years!" rang mockingly in his ears. Suddenly he paused. "Forty or a hundred, I will never give in!" he said, and his mouth looked almost cruel in its set sternness. * * * * * Spring had come. A soft, warm, early spring that brought all the tender flowers peeping out before their time. And in the warm, trying spring Hugh Michelhurst fell ill of a low fever. At the end of May he rose from his sick bed, and refused to be an invalid any longer. But his strength was gone from him. One day he walked out into the country, and his love was strong on him, so that he bowed his head, and felt weak as a child. And suddenly a scent was wafted to him on the breeze. He stood and lifted his head to meet it, and his face worked. On a little cottage red roses glowed before their time. He had seen none since he was in the old garden at Ancelles. He stretched out his arms. "I give in," he said, and he turned and retraced his steps the way he had come. * * * * * In a little sunny path amongst the roses he found her. "My darling--my darling--I will live here always--only live with me----"