She held it to the very last, then dropped it into her finger-bowl and rose.

“Now, mon cher!” In the dim light she looked very tall and slight and seemed possessed of a curious dignity.  All the animation had left her face, beneath the eyes were shadows, and in the eyes a tragic sadness—­the sadness that the soul creates for itself.

Blake rose also and, side by side, very quietly, they left the restaurant.  In the street outside, the cab that had assisted in the day’s adventures still waited their pleasure.

He handed her to her place and paused, his foot upon the step.

“And now, liege lady—­where?”

She looked at him gravely and answered without a tremor, “To Max’s studio.”

Surprise—­if surprise touched him—­showed not at all upon his face.  He gave the order quietly and explicitly, and took his place beside her.

Down the broad street of Versailles they wheeled, but both were too preoccupied to see the lurking ghosts of a past regime that lie so palpably in the shadows, and presently Blake’s hand found hers once more.

“You are cold?”

She shook her head.

Through the cool night they drove, under the jewelled cloak of the sky, rushing forward toward Paris as Max had once rushed in the mysterious north express.

Blake did not speak or move again until the city was close about them; then, with a gesture that startled her by its unexpectedness, he drew from his hand the signet ring he always wore—­a ring familiar to Max as the stones of the rue Mueller—­and slipped it over her third finger.

“Oh, Ned!” She started as the ring slipped into place, and her voice trembled with fear and superstition.

He pressed her hand.  “Don’t refuse it!  The ring is the emblem of the eternal, and all my thoughts for you belong to eternity.”

No more was said; they skimmed through the familiar ways until Maxine could have cried aloud for grace, and at last they stopped at the corner of the rue Andre de Sarte.

She stood aside as Blake dismissed the cab, she knew that had speech been demanded of her then she could not have brought forth a word, so parched were her lips, so impotent her tongue.

Her ordeal confronted her; no human power could eliminate it now.  To her was the disentangling of knotted threads, the sorting of the colors in the scheme of things.  She averted her face from Blake as they mounted the Escalier de Sainte-Marie, and her hand clung for support to the iron railing.

Familiar to the point of agony was the open doorway, the dark hall of the house in the rue Mueller.  Side by side they entered; side by side, and in complete silence, they made the ascent of the stairs, each step of which was heavy with memories.

On the fifth floor she went forward and opened the door of Max’s appartement.  Within, all was dark and quiet, and Blake, loyally following her, passed without comment through the tiny hall, on into the little salon where the light from the brilliant sky made visible the pathetically familiar objects—­the old copper vessels, the dower chest, the leathern arm-chair.