I believe I should have run away, but I heard Minima’s voice behind me, calling shrilly to Dr. John, and I could not bear to face him again.  Taking my courage in both hands, I stepped quickly across the floor, for if I had hesitated longer my heart would have failed me.  Scarcely a moment had passed since Jack left me, and Martin had not turned his head, yet it seemed an age.

“Martin,” I whispered, as I stood close behind him, “how could you be so foolish as to send Dr. John to me?”

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.

PALMY DAYS.

We were married as soon as the season was over, when Martin’s fashionable patients were all going away from town.  Ours was a very quiet wedding, for I had no friends on my side, and Martin’s cousin Julia could not come, for she had a baby not a month old, and Captain Carey could not leave them.  Johanna Carey and Minima were my bridesmaids, and Jack was Martin’s groomsman.

On our way home from Switzerland, in the early autumn, we went down from Paris to Falaise, and through Noireau to Ville-en-bois.  From Falaise every part of the road was full of associations to me.  This was the long, weary journey which Minima and I had taken, alone, in a dark November night; and here were the narrow and dirty streets of Noireau, which we had so often trodden, cold, and hungry, and friendless.  Martin said little about it, but I knew by his face, and by the tender care he lavished upon me, that his mind was as full of it as mine was.

There was no reason for us to stay even a day in Noireau, and we hurried through it on our way to Ville-en-bois.  This road was still more memorable to me, for we had traversed it on foot.

“See, Martin!” I cried, “there is the trunk of the tree still, where Minima and I sat down to rest.  I am glad the tree is there yet.  If we were not in a hurry, you and I would sit there now; it is so lonely and still, and scarcely a creature passes this way.  It is delicious to be lonely sometimes.  How foot-sore and famished we were, walking along this rough part of the road!  Martin, I almost wish our little Minima were with us.  There is the common!  If you will look steadily, you can just see the top of the cross, against the black line of fir-trees, on the far side.”

I was getting so excited that I could speak no longer; but Martin held my hand in his, and I clasped it more and more tightly as we drew nearer to the cross, where Minima and I had sat down at the foot, forlorn and lost, in the dark shadows of the coming night.  Was it possible that I was the same Olivia?

But as we came in sight of the little grove of cypresses and yews, we could discern a crowd of women, in their snow-white caps, and of men and boys, in blue blouses.  The hollow beat of a drum reached our ears afar off, and after it the shrill notes of a violin and fife playing a merry tune.  Monsieur Laurentie appeared in the foreground of the multitude, bareheaded, long before we reached the spot.