He did not answer. She thought, perhaps, he had not listened to her pathetic little explanation; she did not know that it had gone straight for his heart. The pity that he had felt once or twice before became more intense, more personal. Perhaps the time and circumstances helped the feeling: the evening was soft, quiet, almost solemn; all his sympathies had been called out that day by the little child's deathbed. "Let me go to sleep," the little tired voice had said; there was no more pain afterwards, except in the hearts of the watchers. The words came back to him continually, with a vision of the tiny, wasted, flushed face; any appeal would have touched him in his present mood, and Therese seemed only an older child, with no one, as she said, to care for her. He walked on, thinking silently, and she made a great effort to put a question into words. "Have you heard nothing yet of Monsieur Saint-Martin?" "Nothing, nothing. One would have supposed that by this time a letter-- a message, at least--might have reached Ardron. It would seem that the estrangement was serious. Why do people take so much trouble to forge their own unhappiness, Mademoiselle Veuillot?" There are many ways of doing that work, innocent, unconscious ways, sometimes. At this very moment, M. Deshoulieres, with his big, manly, pitiful heart, was laying it open and making it ready for the sharp red-hot thrusts that came afterwards. We do the same, all of us, often. We grind the weapons that are to wound us. But, thank God, the weapons are not always evil, and such leave no poison in the wound. "Mademoiselle, did you hear the clock strike?" said Nannon, bustling up. "We must make haste, the days grow so short, and the virgins up there do not carry their lamps lit." "Up there" was the cathedral porch, where the parable is graven, and the ten stand in their changeless attitudes of despair or bliss. M. Deshoulieres, Therese, and Nannon passed under them. It was not so dark as Nannon represented, but a sweet duskiness was veiling all the bright tints; people sat outside their houses laughing and chattering with their children; a few lights began to appear; in the distance was heard the indistinct roll of a drum. Rue St Servan looked gloomy when they turned into it: the light always left it early. When M. Deshoulieres wished Therese good evening, he said, with a smile which she did not see,--"Do not stay so long by the river another evening, mademoiselle." CHAPTER NINE. "A stirring of the heart, a quickening keen Of sight and hearing to the delicate Beauty and music of an altered world; ...That mysterious light, Which doth reveal and yet transform; which give Destiny, sorrow, youth, and death, and life, Intenser meaning; in disquieting Lifts up; a shining light: men call it love." Jean Ingelow. ------------------------------------------------------------------------