Then--_then_ the soft voice for once was loud.

'_Ii est sauve_!' My father shed tears; everybody shed tears--except Thibaut himself." Piers hung on the speaker's lips.

No music had ever held him so rapt.
When she ceased he gazed at her.
"No, of course, that's not all," Irene proceeded, with the mischievous smile again; and she spoke much as she might have done to an eagerly listening child.

"Six years pass by.

My father is again in the east of France, and he goes to the old village.