they saw the lights of Givre twinkling at its end. Then
Darrow laid his hand on hers and said: "I know, dear--" and
the hardness in her melted. "He's suffering as I am," she
thought; and for a moment the baleful fact between them
seemed to draw them closer instead of walling them up in
their separate wretchedness.

It was wonderful to be once more re-entering the doors of
Givre with him, and as the old house received them into its
mellow silence she had again the sense of passing out of a
dreadful dream into the reassurance of kindly and familiar
things. It did not seem possible that these quiet rooms, so
full of the slowly-distilled accumulations of a fastidious
taste, should have been the scene of tragic dissensions.
The memory of them seemed to be shut out into the night with
the closing and barring of its doors.

At the tea-table in the oak-room they found Madame de
Chantelle and Effie. The little girl, catching sight of
Darrow, raced down the drawing-rooms to meet him, and
returned in triumph on his shoulder. Anna looked at them
with a smile. Effie, for all her graces, was chary of such
favours, and her mother knew that in according them to
Darrow she had admitted him to the circle where Owen had
hitherto ruled.

Over the tea-table Darrow gave Madame de Chantelle the
explanation of his sudden return from England. On reaching
London, he told her, he had found that the secretary he was
to have replaced was detained there by the illness of his