"I know nothing except that mine is changeless. Come, my love, it is
growing late and cold. Let me take you home. The portress will wonder.
You must slip past her quietly with your veil down. Did you give old
Margot your key when you came down stairs to-night?"

"No, it is in my pocket. I was not thinking--I--"

She stopped with a sudden shudder. Gustave understood that shudder; he
also shuddered. She had left her room that night possessed by the
suicide's madness; she had left it to come straight to death. Happily his
strong arm had come between her and that cruel grave by which they were
still lingering.

They walked slowly back to the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle under the light of
the newly-risen moon. The Englishwoman's wasted hand rested for the first
time on M. Lenoble's arm. She was his--his by the intervention and by the
decree of Providence! That became a conviction in the young man's mind.
He covered her late return to the house with diplomatic art, engaging the
portress in conversation while the dark figure glided past in the dim
lamplight. On the staircase he paused to bid her good night.

"You will walk with me in the Luxembourg garden to-morrow morning,
dearest," he said. "I have so much to say--so much. Until then, adieu!"

He kissed her hand, and left her on the threshold of her apartment, and
then went to his own humble bachelor's chamber, singing a little drinking
song in his deep manly voice, happy beyond all measure.

They walked together next day in the gardens of the Luxembourg. The poor
lonely creature whom Gustave had rescued seemed already to look up to him