“I will go, David,” she said.  Her voice was low and she spoke with a steadiness that alarmed me.  “I will go.”

Torn with pity, I thought again, but I could see no alternative.  And then, suddenly, she was clinging to me, her courage gone, her breast shaken with sobs.  “Where shall I go?” she cried.  “God help me!  Are there no remote places where He will not seek me out?  I have tried them all, David.”  And quite as suddenly she disengaged herself, and looked at me strangely.  “You are well revenged for Temple Bow,” she said.

“Hush,” I answered, and held her, fearing I knew not what, “you have not lacked courage.  It is not so bad as you believe.  I will devise a plan and help you.  Have you money?”

“Yes,” she answered, with a remnant of her former pride; “and I have an annuity paid now to Mr. Clark.”

“Then listen to what I say,” I answered.  “To-night I will take you to New Orleans and hide you safely.  And I swear to you, whether it be right or wrong, that I will use every endeavor to change Nick’s feelings towards you.  Come,” I continued, leading her gently into the path, “let us go while there is yet time.”

“Stop,” she said, and I halted fearfully.  “David Ritchie, you are a good man.  I can make no amends to you,”—­she did not finish.

Feeling for the path in the blackness of the wood, I led her by the hand, and she followed me as trustfully as a child.  At last, after an age of groping, the heavy scents of shrubs and flowers stole to us on the night air, and we came out at the hedge into what seemed a blaze of light that flooded the rows of color.  Here we paused, breathless, and looked.  The bench under the great tree was vacant, and the garden was empty.

It was she who led the way through the hedge, who halted in the garden path at the sound of voices.  She turned, but there was no time to flee, for the tall figure of a man came through the opposite hedge, followed by a lady.  One was Nicholas Temple, the other, Mademoiselle de St. Gre.  Mrs. Temple’s face alone was in the shadow, and as I felt her hand trembling on my arm I summoned all my resources.  It was Nick who spoke first.

“It is Davy!” he cried.  “Oh, the sly rascal!  And this is the promenade of which he left us word, the solitary meditation!  Speak up, man; you are forgiven for deserting us.”

He turned, laughing, to Mademoiselle.  But she stood with her lips parted and her hands dropped, staring at my companion.  Then she took two steps forward and stopped with a cry.

“Mrs. Clive!”

The woman beside me turned, and with a supreme courage raised her head and faced the girl.

“Yes, Antoinette, it is I,” she answered.

And then my eyes sought Nick, for Mrs. Temple had faced her son with a movement that was a challenge, yet with a look that questioned, yearned, appealed.  He, too, stared, the laughter fading from his eyes, first astonishment, and then anger, growing in them, slowly, surely.  I shall never forget him as he stood there (for what seemed an age) recalling one by one the wrongs this woman had done him.  She herself had taught him to brook no restraint, to follow impetuously his loves and hates, and endurance in these things was moulded in every line of his finely cut features.  And when he spoke it was not to her, but to the girl at his side.