’"Enter!” he said, in a voice loud enough to reach her.

’Mademoiselle V—–­ stood still.

’"Enter!” he said, and, as she did not move, he repeated the word a third time.

’She had really been going to cross, and now approached and stepped down into the boat.  Though she did not raise her eyes she knew that he was watching her over.  At the landing steps she saw from under the brim of her hat a hand stretched down.  The steps were steep and slippery.

’"No, Monsieur,” she said.  “Unless, indeed, you believe in God, and repent of your evil past!”

’"I am sorry you were made to suffer.  But I only believe in the god called Reason, and I do not repent.  I was the instrument of a national principle.  Your friends were not sacrificed for any ends of mine.”

’She thereupon withheld her hand, and clambered up unassisted.  He went on, ascending the Look-out Hill, and disappearing over the brow.  Her way was in the same direction, her errand being to bring home the two young girls under her charge, who had gone to the cliff for an airing.  When she joined them at the top she saw his solitary figure at the further edge, standing motionless against the sea.  All the while that she remained with her pupils he stood without turning, as if looking at the frigates in the roadstead, but more probably in meditation, unconscious where he was.  In leaving the spot one of the children threw away half a sponge-biscuit that she had been eating.  Passing near it he stooped, picked it up carefully, and put it in his pocket.

’Mademoiselle V—–­ came homeward, asking herself, “Can he be starving?”

’From that day he was invisible for so long a time that she thought he had gone away altogether.  But one evening a note came to her, and she opened it trembling.

’"I am here ill,” it said, “and, as you know, alone.  There are one or two little things I want done, in case my death should occur,—­and I should prefer not to ask the people here, if it could be avoided.  Have you enough of the gift of charity to come and carry out my wishes before it is too late?”

’Now so it was that, since seeing him possess himself of the broken cake, she had insensibly begun to feel something that was more than curiosity, though perhaps less than anxiety, about this fellow-countryman of hers; and it was not in her nervous and sensitive heart to resist his appeal.  She found his lodging (to which he had removed from the Old Rooms inn for economy) to be a room over a shop, half-way up the steep and narrow street of the old town, to which the fashionable visitors seldom penetrated.  With some misgiving she entered the house, and was admitted to the chamber where he lay.

’"You are too good, too good,” he murmured.  And presently, “You need not shut the door.  You will feel safer, and they will not understand what we say.”

’"Are you in want, Monsieur?  Can I give you—­”