“Absolution, Father,” she pleaded.

He hesitated, his face quivering with emotions his eyes lustrous with tears, a world of feeling in every line of his countenance.

“Child,” he said hoarsely, “child!  Don’t tempt me!”

“But you must say it, you know, or what will happen to me?”

The priest still hesitated, but her eyes would not release him till he whispered, “Absolvo te, my daughter, and—­God bless you!”

And releasing her hands, he bowed formally to Paul and hurried down the broad stone steps and through the gate.

Opal watched him, a smile, half-remorseful and half-triumphant, upon her face.

“What does it all mean?” asked Paul as he laid his hand upon her arm.

She laughed nervously.  “Oh—­nothing!  Only—­when I see one of those long, clerical cassocks, I am immediately seized with an insane desire to find the man inside the priest!”

“Laudable, certainly!  And you always succeed, I suppose?”

“Yes, usually!—­why not?” And she laughed again.  “Don’t, Paul!  I don’t want to quarrel with you!”

“We won’t quarrel, Opal,” he said.  But the thought of the priest annoyed him.

He seated himself beside her.  “Have you no welcome for me?” he said.

She looked up at him, her eyes sweetly tender.

“Of course, Paul!  I’m very glad to see you again—­if you are a bad boy!”

He looked at her in amazement.  “I, bad?—­No,” he said.  And they laughed again.  But it was not the care-free laughter they had known at sea.  There was a strained note in the tones of the girl that grated strangely upon the Boy’s sensitive ear.  What had happened? he wondered.  What was the new barrier between them?  Was it the priest?  Again the thought of the priest worried him.

“Where is my friend, the Count de Roannes?” he ventured at last.

“He sailed for Paris last week.”

Paul’s heart leaped.  Surely then their legal betrothal had not taken place.

“What happened, Opal?”

“The inevitable!”

And again his heart bounded for joy!  The inevitable!  Surely that meant that the girl’s better nature had triumphed, had shown her the ignominy of such a union in time to save her.  He looked at her for further information, but seeing her evident embarrassment, forbore to pursue the question further.

They wandered out through the luxurious garden, and the spell of its enchantment settled upon them both.

He pulled a crimson rose from a bush and began listlessly to strip the thorns from the stalk.  “Roses in September,” he said, “are like love in the autumn of life.”

And they both thought again of the Count and a chill passed over their spirits.  The girl watched him curiously.

“Do you always cut the thorns from your roses?” she asked.

“Certainly-sooner or later.  Don’t you?”