At this moment a voice, which he fancied was that of a siren rising from the sea, a woman’s voice, repeated the air he had sung, but with all the hesitations of a person to whom music is revealed for the first time.  He recognized the stammering of a heart born into the poesy of harmony.  Etienne, to whom long study of his own voice had taught the language of sounds, in which the soul finds resources greater than speech to express its thoughts, could divine the timid amazement that attended these attempts.  With what religious and subtile admiration had that unknown being listened to him!  The stillness of the atmosphere enabled him to hear every sound, and he quivered at the distant rustle of the folds of a gown.  He was amazed, —­he, whom all emotions produced by terror sent to the verge of death —­to feel within him the healing, balsamic sensation which his mother’s coming had formerly brought to him.

“Come, Gabrielle, my child,” said the voice of Beauvouloir, “I forbade you to stay upon the seashore after sundown; you must come in, my daughter.”

“Gabrielle,” said Etienne to himself.  “Oh! the pretty name!”

Beauvouloir presently came to him, rousing his young master from one of those meditations which resemble dreams.  It was night, and the moon was rising.

“Monseigneur,” said the physician, “you have not been out to-day, and it is not wise of you.”

“And I,” replied Etienne, “can I go on the seashore after sundown?”

The double meaning of this speech, full of the gentle playfulness of a first desire, made the old man smile.

“You have a daughter, Beauvouloir.”

“Yes, monseigneur,—­the child of my old age; my darling child.  Monseigneur, the duke, your father, charged me so earnestly to watch your precious health that, not being able to go to Forcalier, where she was, I have brought her here, to my great regret.  In order to conceal her from all eyes, I have placed her in the house monseigneur used to occupy.  She is so delicate I fear everything, even a sudden sentiment or emotion.  I have never taught her anything; knowledge would kill her.”

“She knows nothing!” cried Etienne, surprised.

“She has all the talents of a good housewife, but she has lived as the plants live.  Ignorance, monseigneur, is as sacred a thing as knowledge.  Knowledge and ignorance are only two ways of living, for the human creature.  Both preserve the soul and envelop it; knowledge is your existence, but ignorance will save my daughter’s life.  Pearls well-hidden escape the diver, and live happy.  I can only compare my Gabrielle to a pearl; her skin has the pearl’s translucence, her soul its softness, and until this day Forcalier has been her fostering shell.”

“Come with me,” said Etienne, throwing on a cloak.  “I want to walk on the seashore, the air is so soft.”

Beauvouloir and his master walked in silence until they reached a spot where a line of light, coming from between the shutters of a fisherman’s house, had furrowed the sea with a golden rivulet.