Come, Elise.' I bowed low to hide my face, and they nodded pleasantly--not looking closely at me--as they walked by me to the house.

I watched the two gracious, pale-robed figures until the doorway swallowed them, and then I walked away to a quiet corner where the shrubs grew highest and the yew hedge threw its deepest shadow, and I stood to think.
And, MON DIEU, strange thoughts.

If the oak can think at the moment the wind uproots it, or the gnarled thorn-bush when the landslip tears it from the slope, they may have such thoughts, I stared at the leaves, at the rotting blossoms, into the dark cavities of the hedge; I stared mechanically, dazed and wondering.

What was the purpose for which I was here?
What was the work I had come to do?
Above all, how--my God! how was I to do it in the face of these helpless women, who trusted me, who believed in me, who opened their house to me?
Clon had not frightened me, nor the loneliness of the leagued village, nor the remoteness of this corner where the dread Cardinal seemed a name, and the King's writ ran slowly, and the rebellion long quenched elsewhere, still smouldered.
But Madame's pure faith, the younger woman's tenderness--how was I to face these?
I cursed the Cardinal--would he had stayed at Luchon.

I cursed the English fool who had brought me to this, I cursed the years of plenty and scarceness, and the Quartier Marais, and Zaton's, where I had lived like a pig, and-- A touch fell on my arm.