Claire snatched a broad Navarrese bonnet and went. * * * * * "My sweet cousin, I bid you welcome," a voice spoke, mocking a little, but quiet and penetrating. Hastily Claire let the laurel branch slip back, stood upright like a startled fawn, and--found herself in face of Raphael Llorient, who at the other side of the little brook which flowed from the Spring of Our Lady of the Consolation, leaned against a tree, tapping his knee with a switch and smiling triumphantly across at her. "Ah, cousin," he said, "you did not give me any very pressing invitation to come again to see you at the Mas on the hillside yonder. All the more gracious of you, therefore, to have come so far to meet me at my favourite retreat!" "But I--I did not know--I had no idea----" Claire stammered. The Lord of Collioure waved his hand easily, as one who passed lightly from a childish indiscretion. "Of course not--of course not," he agreed, as if humouring her mood, "how should you know? You had never even heard of the Spring of Our Lady of the Consolation, or of its magic properties. Well, we have time--I will explain them to you, sweet cousin Claire!" "Oh, pray do not," cried Claire breathlessly; "I know--what they say--what Jean-Marie says, that is. He pointed out the nest of bushes on the hillside last night--I should not have come!" "And he told you, I doubt not--he would not be a Collioure man if he did not, and a good Catholic of Roussillon (which is to say a good pagan)--that you had but to look in the well at the gloaming to see the Predestined. Well, look!" In spite of herself Claire glanced downwards. She stood on the opposite side of it from her cousin Raphael, and it was with a thrill of anger and fear that she saw his slender figure mirrored in the black pool. "It looks like a betrothal--eh, cousin?" said Raphael, "even by your friend Jean-Marie's telling?" "No, no!" cried Claire desperately, "I do not believe it. It is only because I found you standing there. Of course, you can also see me from where you stand! It is nothing!" "It is everything--a double proof of our fate, yours and mine, my cousin," said Raphael softly. "The Well of the Consolation has betrothed us. Sweet cousin Claire, there remains for me only to leap the slight obstacle and take possession! So fair a bride goes not long a-begging!" "No, no!" cried Claire, more emphatically, and making sure of her retreat in case of need, "I do not want to marry. I could not marry you, at any rate--you are my cousin!" Inwardly she was saying to herself, "I must speak him fair to get away. When once I am back at La Masane I shall never wander away again from the Señora. I shall milk goats all my life--even if they butt me. I wish it were now." Her cousin Llorient smiled with subtlety. There was a flash in his eyes in the dusk of the wood like that of a wild animal seen in a cave.