A shoe grated softly on the stone step, and Madame Delphine, her heart beating in great thuds, without waiting for a knock, opened the door, bowed low, and exclaimed in a soft perturbed voice: "Miche Vignevielle!" He entered, hat in hand, and with that almost noiseless tread which we have noticed.

She gave him a chair and closed the door; then hastened, with words of apology, back to her task of lighting the lamp.

But her hands paused in their work again,--Olive's step was on the stairs; then it came off the stairs; then it was in the next room, and then there was the whisper of soft robes, a breath of gentle perfume, and a snowy figure in the door.

She was dressed for the evening.
"Maman ?" Madame Delphine was struggling desperately with the lamp, and at that moment it responded with a tiny bead of light.
"I am here, my daughter." She hastened to the door, and Olive, all unaware of a third presence, lifted her white arms, laid them about her mother's neck, and, ignoring her effort to speak, wrested a fervent kiss from her lips.

The crystal of the lamp sent out a faint gleam; it grew; it spread on every side; the ceiling, the walls lighted up; the crucifix, the furniture of the room came back into shape.
"Maman!" cried Olive, with a tremor of consternation.
"It is Miche Vignevielle, my daughter----" The gloom melted swiftly away before the eyes of the startled maiden, a dark form stood out against the farther wall, and the light, expanding to the full, shone clearly upon the unmoving figure and quiet face of Capitaine Lemaitre..