“Thank you, Angelique. I am troubled, too, and I will take care that I neither say nor resent anything harsh. More than that, I will go away. I have stayed too long already, though I had hoped I was making myself useful. Is he in his own study?” “Yes, and the little maid is with him. No--there she comes, but she is not laughin’, no. Oh! the broken glass. Scat! Meroude. Why leap upon one to scare the breath out, that way? Pst! ’Tis here that tame creatures grow wild and wild ones tame. Scat! I say.” Margot was coming through the rooms, holding Reynard by the collar she made him wear whenever he was in the neighborhood of the hen-house, and Tom limped listlessly along upon her other side. There was trouble and perplexity in the girl’s face, and Angelique made a great pretense of being angry with the cat, to hide that in her own. But Margot noticed neither her nor Adrian, and sitting down upon the threshold dropped her chin in her hands and fixed her eyes upon the darkening lake. “Why, mistress! The beast here at the cabin, and it nightfall! My poor fowls!” “He’s leashed, you see, Angelique. And I’ll lock the poultry up, if you like,” observed Adrian. Anything to delay a little an interview from which he shrank with something very like that cowardice of which the girl had once accused him. The housekeeper’s ready temper flamed, and she laid an ungentle touch upon the stranger’s shoulder. “Go, boy. When Master Hugh commands, ’tis not for such as we to disobey.” “All right. I’m going; and I’ll remember.” At the inner doorway he turned and looked back. Margot was still sitting, thoughtful and motionless, the firelight from the great hearth making a Rembrandt-like silhouette of her slight figure against the outer darkness and touching her wonderful hair with a flood of silver. Reynard and the eagle, the wild foresters her love had tamed, stood guard on either side. It was a picture that appealed to Adrian’s artistic sense and he lingered a little, regarding its effects, even considering what pigments would best convey them. [Illustration: HER PETS STOOD GUARD ON EITHER SIDE] “Adrian!” “Yes, Angelique--yes.” When the door shut behind him, Angelique touched her darling’s shining head, and the toil-stiffened fingers had for it almost a mother’s tenderness. “Sweetheart, the bed-time.” “I know--I’m going, Angelique; my uncle sent me from him to-night. It was the first time in all my life that I remember.” “Maybe, little stupid, because you’ve never waited for that, before, but were quick enough to see whenever you were not wanted.” “He--there’s something wrong, and Adrian is the cause of it. I--Angelique, you tell me--uncle did not hear, or reply, any way--where is my father buried?” Angelique was prepared and had her answer ready.