They had started later than was usual, and already the daylight had begun to dim, and the west to turn from red to saffron, and from saffron to fawn. Directly below them lay a maze of steep and narrow streets, shelving toward the boulevard de Rochechouart; and far further, to the southwest, the place de l'Opéra was breaking into the alternate deep red and glaring white of electric advertising signs, the lettering of which could not be distinguished from where they stood, but which painted the faint haze of evening with swiftly changing contrasts of color. Suddenly Marcelle began to speak, her voice eloquent with a strange, new music. "Papa Labesse, dost thou comprehend what all this says to us, this wonderful city upon which we look each night, thou and I? From here--what? A bewilderment of lights, a sea of roofs, a murmur of faintly heard cries. But what does it mean? Surely, it is the voice of the mother of us all, of Paris, the great, the beautiful--of a woman, Papa Labesse: that finally, which thou canst never comprehend, pauvre Papa Labesse!--a woman who says but one word--love! Papa Labesse--L'amour, l'amour, l'amour!--again, and again, and again, l'amour!" There was a long silence. Then, almost timidly, Papa Labesse laid his hand on hers. "But thou dost not love, my little one,--thou?" he said. Marcelle turned suddenly. "Si, I love!" she answered. Above the tapering, distant shaft of the Tour Eiffel a tiny cloud caught the last ray of the departed sun, blazed crimson for an instant, and then, as suddenly, gloomed to slate-gray. "Que Dieu te bénisse!" said Papa Labesse, solemnly. "It is all so wonderful," continued Marcelle after a moment, "and yet I have never seemed to understand it till to-day,--this great, sweet voice of Paris. It is indeed as if she was the mother of us all, Papa Labesse, and was spreading out her arms, and calling us all to come to her heart. And for each of us she has something good--something better than ever we have imagined for ourselves, or wished to have; and yet, in whatever form, it is really the same thing always--l'amour, Papa Labesse, l'amour!" Out of the strain of the past half hour a great sob was suddenly wrung from Papa Labesse. He took the girl's radiant face between his knotted hands and looked long into her eyes without speaking. "Tell me, my pigeon," he said, finally, "is it--is it the young Fremier?" Marcelle flung both arms about his neck, as she had done on the day when he had given her the little white prayerbook. He felt her lips, warm and moist, against his wrinkled ear, and when she spoke, her voice was like the sound of two leaves grazing each other at the touch of a light breeze. "Oui!" she said.