He spoke after a moment very softly, almost as if to himself.  “Neither will he forget,” he said, “that our love was a summer idyll that came to us unawares in the days when we were young, and that though the idyll will come to an end, our love is a gift immortal—­imperishable—­indestructible—­a flame that burns upwards and always upwards—­reaching the Divine.  And because he remembers this, he will understand, and think no evil.  Christine,” he turned to her again very persuasively, “you love him.  You have need of him.  I know it well.  You are sad.  You are lonely.  Your heart cries out for him.  Little Christine, will you not listen to it?  Will you not go back to him?”

The man’s whole soul was in the words.  They quivered with the intensity of his appeal.  Yet they went into silence.  Chris was turned away from him.  Only by the convulsive holding of her hand did he know that they had reached her heart.

The silence lengthened, became oppressive, became a burden too heavy to be borne.

“Christine!” He was becoming exhausted.  His voice was no more than a whisper, but it throbbed with earnest entreaty.

Yet Chris remained silent still, for she could not speak in answer.

Several seconds passed.  It seemed that the appeal would go unanswered.  But at length the man who stood on Bertrand’s other side made a quiet movement, bending down a little.

“You need not distress yourself, Bertrand,” he said, very steadily, and as he spoke his hand was on the Frenchman’s shoulder.  “Chris will never leave me again.”

“Ah!” Eagerly Bertrand looked up at him.  He had begun to gasp again, and his words were hurried and difficult of utterance.  “And you, monsieur—­you will not—­leave her?”

Mordaunt made no verbal answer, but their eyes must have met in the dimness and some message have passed between them, for there was a tremor of sheer relief in his voice when Bertrand spoke again.

“Oh, my friend!” he said.  “My dear friend!” And, yielding to the hand that gently pressed him back, he reclined upon his pillows and became passive.

Mordaunt remained beside him for several seconds longer, but he did not speak again.  When he straightened himself at length, he glanced round for Max, and motioned him away.

They went together into the adjoining room and softly closed the door.

And so Chris and her preux chevalier were left alone by the open window to end their summer idyll to the music of the rising tide that crooned and murmured among the rocks of Valpre that had seen its beginning.

CHAPTER XI

THE END OF THE VOYAGE

How the sun was shining on the water!  What a glorious morning for a bathe!  Chris laughed to herself—­a happy little, inconsequent laugh.

But she must be quick or Mademoiselle Gautier would catch her and forbid her to go!  Poor old Mademoiselle, who had been brought up in a convent and thought all nice things were improper!