It is true that when left alone a mask of gloom shadowed his face, and his thin fingers opened and closed nervously and unconsciously.

Diane, Diane, Diane! It was the murmur of far-off voices, it was the whisper of the winds in the shrouds, it was the cry of the lonely gull and the stormy petrel.

To pass through the weary years of his exile without again seeing that charming face, finally to strive in vain to recall it in all its perfect beauty! This thought affected him more than the thought of the stigma on his birth.

That he could and would live down; he was still a man, with a brain and a heart and a strong arm.

But Diane! The Comte d'Herouville, for some reason best known to himself, appeared to be acting with a view toward partial conciliation.