“Baroness,” said he, “I have been your friend and pensioner nearly twenty years; if by some strange chance money were to come into my hands, I should not play you a childish trick like this.  What! have I not the right to come to you, and say, ’My old friend, here I bring you back a very small part of all I owe you?’”

“What geese we are,” remarked Rose.  “Dear doctor, you tell us who it is.”

Dr. Aubertin reflected a single moment; then said he could make a shrewd guess.

“Who? who? who?” cried the whole party.

“Perrin the notary.”

It was the baroness’s turn to be surprised; for there was nothing romantic about Perrin the notary.  Aubertin, however, let her know that he was in private communication with the said Perrin, and this was not the first friendly act the good notary had done her in secret.

While he was converting the baroness to his view, Josephine and Rose exchanged a signal, and slipped away round an angle of the chateau.

“Who is it?” said Rose.

“It is some one who has a delicate mind.”

“Clearly, and therefore not a notary.”

“Rose, dear, might it not be some person who has done us some wrong, and is perhaps penitent?”

“Certainly; one of our tenants, or creditors, you mean; but then, the paper says ‘a friend.’  Stay, it says a debtor.  Why a debtor?  Down with enigmas!”

“Rose, love,” said Josephine, coaxingly, “think of some one that might—­since it is not the doctor, nor Monsieur Perrin, might it not be—­for after all, he would naturally be ashamed to appear before me.”

“Before you?  Who do you mean?” asked Rose nervously, catching a glimpse now.

“He who once pretended to love me.”

“Josephine, you love that man still.”

“No, no.  Spare me!”

“You love him just the same as ever.  Oh, it is wonderful; it is terrible; the power he has over you; over your judgment as well as your heart.”

“No! for I believe he has forgotten my very name; don’t you think so?”

“Dear Josephine, can you doubt it?  Come, you do doubt it.”

“Sometimes.”

“But why? for what reason?”

“Because of what he said to me as we parted at that gate; the words and the voice seem still to ring like truth across the weary years.  He said, ’I am to join the army of the Pyrenees, so fatal to our troops; but say to me what you never yet have said, Camille, I love you:  and I swear I will come back alive.’  So then I said to him, ’I love you,’—­and he never came back.”

“How could he come here? a deserter, a traitor!”

“It is not true; it is not in his nature; inconstancy may be.  Tell me that he never really loved me, and I will believe you; but not that he is a traitor.  Let me weep over my past love, not blush for it.”

“Past?  You love him to-day as you did three years ago.”