CHAPTER XI

It was the poignancy of these feelings which, later, drew Valmond to
the ashes of the fire in whose glow Elise had stood. The village was
quieting down, the excited habitants had scattered to their homes. But
in one or two houses there was dancing, and, as he passed, Valmond heard
the chansons of the humble games they played--primitive games, primitive
chansons:

"In my right hand I hold a rose-bush,
Which will bloom, Manon lon la!
Which will bloom in the month of May.
Come into our dance, pretty rose-bush,
Come and kiss, Manon Ion la!
Come and kiss whom you love best!"

The ardour, the delight, the careless joy of youth, were in the song and
in the dance. These simple folk would marry, beget children, labour
hard, obey Mother Church, and yield up the ghost peacefully in the end,
after their kind; but now and then there was born among them one not
after their kind: even such as Madelinette, with the stirring of talent
in her veins, and the visions of the artistic temperament--delight and
curse all at once--lifting her out of the life, lonely, and yet
sorrowfully happy.

Valmond looked around. How still it was, the home of Elise standing
apart in the quiet fields! But involuntarily his eyes were drawn to the
hill beyond, where showed a light in a window of the Manor. To-morrow he
would go there: he had much to say to Madame Chalice. The moon was lying
off above the edge of hills, looking out on the world complacently, like