As he had observed a week before, from the top of the wall, a double row of larches led straight down away from the front of the house, making a wide and long vista interrupted half-way to its end by a rond point, in the centre of which were a pool and a fountain.  The double row of trees was sadly broken now, and the trees were untrimmed and uncared for.  One of them had fallen, probably in a wind-storm, and lay dead across the way.  Ste. Marie turned aside toward the west and found himself presently among chestnuts, planted in close rows, whose tops grew in so thick a canopy above that but little sunshine came through, and there was no turf under foot, only black earth, hard-trodden, mossy here and there.

From beyond, in the direction he had chanced to take, and a little toward the west, a soft morning breeze bore to him the scent of roses so constant and so sweet, despite its delicacy, that to breathe it was like an intoxication.  He felt it begin to take hold upon and to sway his senses like an exquisite, an insidious wine.

“The flower-gardens, Michel?” he asked, over his shoulder.  “They are before us?”

“Ahead and to the left, Monsieur,” said the old man, and he took up once more his slow and difficult progress.

But again, before he had gone many steps, he was halted.  There began to reach his ears a rich but slender strain of sound, a golden thread of melody.  At first he thought that it was a ’cello or the lower notes of a violin, but presently he became aware that it was a woman singing in a half-voice without thought of what she sang—­as women croon to a child, or over their work, or when they are idle and their thoughts are far wandering.

The mistake was not as absurd as it may seem, for it is a fact that the voice which is called a contralto, if it is a good and clear and fairly resonant voice, sounds at a distance very much indeed like a ’cello or the lower register of a violin.  And that is especially true when the voice is hushed to a half-articulate murmur.  Indeed, this is but one of the many strange peculiarities of that most beautiful of all human organs.  The contralto can rarely express the lighter things, and it is quite impossible for it to express merriment or gayety, but it can thrill the heart as can no other sound emitted by a human throat, and it can shake the soul to its very innermost hidden deeps.  It is the soft, yellow gold of singing—­the wine of sound; it is mystery; it is shadowy, unknown, beautiful places; it is enchantment.  Ste. Marie stood still and listened.  The sound of low singing came from the right.  Without realizing that he had moved, he began to make his way in that direction, and the old Michel, carbine upon arm, followed behind him.  He had no doubt of the singer.  He knew well who it was, for the girl’s speaking voice had thrilled him long before this.  He came to the eastern margin of the grove of chestnuts and found that he was beside the open rond point, where