at this hour too? Come; let me take you home."

"Noël, I came to see you. I hoped to have met you. I have something
important to say to you."

"Indeed, Marie, what can it be? You should have sent for me. You cannot
talk to me here. Let me take you home, and then you can tell me."

"No, no," said Marie persistently. "Jean and my father are in the house,
and I wish to speak to you alone, and what I am going to tell you I must
say to-night."

"What is this tremendous secret?"

She did not answer the question but said abruptly:

"M. Bois-le-Duc tells me you are going away."

"Going away? Um--um--I don't know," Noël replied hesitatingly. "I think
not. No no, M. Bois-le-Duc makes a great mistake."

"You are not going away?" said the girl, a glad light coming into her
eyes. "What, Noël you have not come into this fortune?"

"Oh! yes, there is no doubt about that; but there are conditions, and I
can't accept them."

"What are the conditions?"

"One is that I shall have to leave you, to give you up."