The sunlight pierced the faggot wall of the shed, and burnt like golden tongues on the sombre cloth of the man’s cassock. Something in Grimbald’s eyes sobered Marpasse abruptly. It was not anger, not an amused and fatherly tolerance, but a look in which the deep strong heart of the man betrayed itself. Marpasse caught her breath, and went fiercely red under her brown skin. Then, a sudden virginal softness seemed to steal over her face. She hung her head, but not foolishly. For the moment neither she nor Grimbald spoke. Marpasse gave a short, curious laugh, picked up a rotten stick, and began to snap it into small pieces between her hands. “May they be very happy,” she said; “the love of a strong man is life to a woman, Father—and the children that may come of it.” She looked up quickly at Grimbald, and her bold eyes had grown like the eyes of a girl. “I might have made a good mother—but there——!” and she threw the pieces of broken wood aside, and spread her hands “children have not come my way—nor the man who will master me,” and she was silent, staring at the ground. Grimbald’s face shone like a rock with the sunlight on it. “To some of us such things are not given,” he said; “my children are down yonder—and yet——! I chose what I chose—when I was a lad.” Marpasse seemed to be struggling to say something that would not shape itself into words. “It is so lonely—sometimes,” and her eyes looked into the past; “dear heart, I have often spat at the thought of myself! It is always ‘the might have been,’ with some of us. The world often leers at a woman, Father, when it offers her a penny. I was just as tall as the harvest wheat when they pushed me out on the road. But I am not bad to the core, Father, though few people would think it the truth.” She heard Grimbald draw his breath. “The core of the world is a generous heart,” he said; “look at me, Marpasse. Many things might happen, but for what I am.” He took Marpasse’s hands, held them a moment, and then dropped them reverently, looking at her to see that she understood. And these two brave souls gazed in each other’s eyes, knowing that they could come no nearer, and that their lives might cross but never travel the same road. Yet Marpasse went out from the wood-shed into the sunlight with a smile upon her face, the smile of a woman who has re-discovered mystery in herself. A look of the eyes, a few words, a touch of the hands—that was all! Marpasse pressed her face between her two hands, and stood staring and staring away towards the distant woods. The scoffing voice was silent in her, the mouth strangely soft, the eyes the eyes of a young girl. And Denise, who kissed her that night, as a woman who is loved kisses the woman who loves her, saw no shadow of sadness on the brave, brown face of Marpasse. Made and Printed in Great Britain by The Greycaine Book Manufacturing Company Limited, Watford * * * * *