.

THE UNEXPECTED.
In her apartments in the Northern Tower Valerie had supped, and--to spare Monsieur de Garnache the full indignity of that part of the offices he was charged with--she had herself removed the cloth and set the things in the guard-room, where they might lie till morning.

When that was done--and despite her protests, Garnache had insisted upon lending a hand the Parisian reminded her that it was already after nine, and urged her to make such preparations as incumbed her for their journey.
"My preparations are soon made," she assured him with a smile.

"I need but what I may carry in a cloak." They fell to talking of their impending flight, and they laughed together at the discomfiture that would be the Dowager's and her son's when, in the morning, they came to discover the empty cage.

From that they passed on to talk of Valerie herself, of her earlier life at La Vauvraye, and later the conversation shifted to Garnache, and she questioned him touching the warring he had seen in early youth, and afterwards asked him for particulars of Paris--that wonderful city which to her mind was the only earthly parallel of Paradise--and of the life at Court.
Thus in intimate talk did they while away the time of waiting, and in the hour that sped they came, perhaps, to know more of each other than they had done hitherto.