There were three days to wait.  The time seemed long in that large vacant house, that sunburnt secluded garden, that glaring silent court.  Bessie spent hours in the church.  It was cool there, and close by if her summons came.  The good cure saw her often, and took no notice.  She was not devout.  She was too facile, too philosophical of temper to have violent preferences or aversions in religion.  A less sober mind than hers would have yielded to the gentle pressure of universal example, but Bessie was not of those who are given to change.  She would have made an excellent Roman Catholic if she had been born and bred in that communion, but she had disappointed everybody’s pious hopes and efforts for her conversion to it.  She once said to the cure that holiness of life was the chief thing, and she could not make out that it was the monopoly of any creed or any sect, or any age of the world.  He gave her his blessing, and, not to acknowledge a complete defeat, he told Madame Fournier that if the dear young lady met with poignant griefs and mortifications, for which there were abundant opportunities in her circumstances, he had expectations that she might then seek refuge and consolation in the tender arms of the Church.  Madame did not agree with him.  She had studied Bessie’s character more closely, and believed that whatever her trials, her strength would always suffice for her day, and that whatever she changed she would not change her profession of faith or deny her liberal and practical Protestant principles.

There was hurry at the end, as in most departures, but it was soon over, and then followed a delicious calm.  The yacht was towed down the river in the beautiful cool of the evening.  A pretty awning shaded the deck, and there Bessie dined daintily with her uncle and Mr. Cecil Burleigh, and for the first time in her life was served with polite assiduity.  She looked very handsome and more coquettish than she had any idea of in her white dress and red capuchon, but she felt shy at being made so much of.  She did not readily adapt herself to worship.  Mr. Cecil Burleigh had arrived from Paris only that afternoon, and had many amusing things to tell of his pleasures and adventures there.  He spoke of Paris as one who loved the gay city, and seemed in excellent spirits.  If his mission had a political object, he must certainly have carried it through with triumphant success; but his talk was of balls, fetes, plays and shows.

After they had dined Bessie was left to her memories and musings, while the gentlemen went pacing up and down the deck in earnest conversation.  It was a perfect evening.  The sky was full of color, scarlet, rosy, violet, primrose—­changing, fading, flushing, perpetually.  And before all was gray the moon had risen and was shining in silver floods upon the sea.  In the mystery of moonshine Bessie lost sight of the phantom poplars that fringe the Orne.  The excitement of novelty and uncertainty