“Ah! luck for the bees,
  The flowers are in flower;
  Luck for the bees in spring. 
  Ah me, but the flowers, they die in an hour;
  No summer is fair as the spring. 
  Ah! luck for the bees;
  The honey in flowers
  Is highest when they are on wing!”

she sang.  Then suddenly breaking off she began singing a wild, sad melody of another song:—­

  “The sad spring rain,
  It has come at last. 
  The graves lie plain,
  And the brooks run fast;
  And drip, drip, drip,
  Falls the sad spring rain;
  And tears fall fresh,
  In the sad spring air,
  From lovers’ eyes,
  On the graves laid bare.”

It was very dark in the storeroom; it was dark out of doors.  The moon had been up for an hour, but the sky was overcast thick with clouds.  Willan Blaycke was still asleep under the pear-tree.  His head was only a few feet from the storeroom window.  The sound of Victorine’s singing reached his ears, but did not at first waken him, only blended confusedly with his dreams.  In a few seconds, however, he waked, sprang to his feet, and looked about him in bewilderment.  Out of the darkness, seemingly within arm’s reach, came the low sweet notes,—­

  “And drip, drip, drip,
    Falls the sad spring rain;
  And tears fall fresh,
    In the sad spring air,
  From lovers’ eyes,
    On the graves laid bare.”

Groping his way in the direction from which the voice came, Willan stumbled against the wall of the house, and put his hand on the window-sill.  “Who sings in here?” he cried, fumbling in the empty space.

“Holy Mother!” shrieked Victorine, and ran out of the storeroom, letting the door shut behind her with all its force.  The noise echoed through the inn, and waked Willan’s friend, who was also taking a nap in one of the old leather-cushioned high-backed chairs in the bar-room.  Rubbing his eyes, he came out to look for Willan.  He met him on the threshold.

“Ah!” he said, “where have you been all this time?  I have slept in a chair, and am vastly rested.”

“The Lord only knows where I have been,” answered Willan, laughing.  “I too have slept; but a woman with a voice like the voice of a wild bird has been singing strange melodies in my ear.”

The elder man smiled.  “The dreams of young men,” he said, “are wont to have the sound of women’s voices in them.”

“This was no dream,” retorted Willan.  “She was so near me I heard the panting breath with which she cried out and fled when I made a step towards her.”

“Gentlemen, will it please you to walk in to supper?” said Victor, appearing in the doorway with a clean white apron on, and no trace, in his smiling and obsequious countenance, of the rage in which he had been a few minutes before.

A second talk with Jeanne after Victorine had left the kitchen had produced a deep impression on Victor’s mind.  He was now as eager as Jeanne herself for the meeting between Victorine and Willan Blaycke.