He was close beside her now, where he had halted, and he set his hand gently upon her shoulder, looked down into that winsome little oval face she raised to his.
"Mademoiselle," he inquired, "would it afflict you very sorely if you were not destined, after all, to wed the Lord of Condillac ?" "Afflict me ?" she echoed.

The very question set her gasping with hope.
"No--no, monsieur; it would not afflict me." "That is true?
That is really, really true ?" he cried, and his tone seemed less despondent.
"Don't you know how true it is ?" she said, in such accents and with such a shy upward look that something seemed suddenly to take Garnache by the throat.

The blood flew to his cheeks.

He fancied an odd meaning in those words of hers--a meaning that set his pulses throbbing faster than joy or peril had ever set them yet.

Then he checked himself, and deep down in his soul he seemed to hear a peal of mocking laughter--just such a burst of sardonic mirth as had broken from his lips two nights ago when on his way to Voiron.