“You need go no farther, Monsieur.  It is quite unnecessary, as I know the way perfectly.”

“I prefer to see you safe inside the chateau,” with quiet determination.

Was this the gallant who had attracted her fancy?  This was not the way he had made love in former days.  Slyly her eyes revolved in his direction.  His temples were grey!  She had not noted this change till now.  Grey; and the face, tanned even in the shaven jaws, was careworn.  There was a gesture which escaped his notice.  Why had she been guilty of the inexcusable madness, the inexplicable folly, of this voyage?

“Madame, this is your door.”

The Chevalier stepped aside and uncovered.

“Monsieur, you have lost a valuable art.”  There was a fleeting glance, and she vanished within, leaving him puzzled and astonished by the unexpected softening of her voice.  How long he stood there, with his gaze fixed upon the vacant doorway, he never knew.  What did she mean?

“Well, Paul?” And Victor, having come up behind, laid his hand on the Chevalier’s arm.  “Do you know her, then?” nodding toward the door.

“Know her?” The Chevalier faced his comrade.  “Would to God, lad, I did not, for she has made me the most unhappy of men.”

The poet trembled in terror at the light within.  “She is . . . ?”

“Yes, Diane; Diane, whose name I murmur in my dreams, waking or sleeping.”

“She?” in half a whisper.  “Her name?”

“Her name?  No!  I know her as a mystery; as Tantalus thirsting for the fruit which hangs ever beyond the reach, I know her; as a woman who is not what she seems, always masked, with or without the cambric.  Know her?” with a laugh full of despair.

Victor was a man of courage and resource.  “I know where there’s a two-quart bottle of burgundy, Paul.  Bah! life will look cheerful enough through that mellow red.  Come with me.”

The Chevalier followed him to the lower town, where, in a room in one of the warehouses, they sat down to the wine.

“Let the women go hang, lad, one and all!” cried the Chevalier, after his sixth and final glass.

“Let them go hang!” But Victor did not confide; not he, loyal friend!  And when he held his emptied glass on high, sighed, and dropped it on the earthen floor, the Chevalier did not know that his comrade’s heart lay shattered with the glass.  Gallant poet!

As madame threaded her way through the dim corridor, but one thought occupied her mind.  It echoed and re-echoed—­“Or, rather, what you pretend to be.”  What did D’Herouville mean by that?  To what did the Chevalier pretend?  Her foot struck something.  It was a book.  Absently she stooped and picked it up, carrying it to her room.  “Or, rather, what you pretend to be.”  If only she had heard the first part of the sentence, or what had led to it!  The Chevalier was gradually becoming as much of a