Presently the sobs ceased, and Mrs. Temple raised her face, slowly, wonderingly, as if she had not heard aright.  And she tried gently to push the girl away.

“No, Antoinette,” she said, “I have done you harm enough.”

But the girl clung to her strongly, passionately.  “I do not care what you have done,” she cried, “you are good now.  I know that you are good now.  I will not cast you out.  I will not.”

I stood looking at them, bewildered and astonished by Mademoiselle’s loyalty.  She seemed to have forgotten Nick, as had I, and then as I turned to him he came towards them.  Almost roughly he took Antoinette by the arm.

“You do not know what you are saying,” he cried.  “Come away, Antoinette, you do not know what she has done—­you cannot realize what she is.”

Antoinette shrank away from him, still clinging to Mrs. Temple.  There was a fearless directness in her look which might have warned him.

“She is your mother,” she said quietly.

“My mother!” he repeated; “yes, I will tell you what a mother she has been to me—­”

“Nick!”

It passes my power to write down the pity of that appeal, the hopelessness of it, the yearning in it.  Freeing herself from the girl, Mrs. Temple took one step towards him, her arms held up.  I had not thought that his hatred of her was deep enough to resist it.  It was Antoinette whose intuition divined this ere he had turned away.

“You have chosen between me and her,” he said; and before we could get the poor lady to the seat under the oak, he had left the garden.  In my perturbation I glanced at Antoinette, but there was no other sign in her face save of tenderness for Mrs. Temple.

Mrs. Temple had mercifully fainted.  As I crossed the lawn I saw two figures in the deep shadow beside the gallery, and I heard Nick’s voice giving orders to Benjy to pack and saddle.  When I reached the garden again the girl had loosed Mrs. Temple’s gown, and was bending over her, murmuring in her ear.

* * * * * * *

Many hours later, when the moon was waning towards the horizon, fearful of surprise by the coming day, I was riding slowly under the trees on the road to New Orleans.  Beside me, veiled in black, her head bowed, was Mrs. Temple, and no word had escaped her since she had withdrawn herself gently from the arms of Antoinette on the gallery at Les Iles.  Nick had gone long before.  The hardest task had been to convince the girl that Mrs. Temple might not stay.  After that Antoinette had busied herself, with a silent fortitude I had not thought was in her, making ready for the lady’s departure.  I shall never forget her as she stood, a slender figure of sorrow, looking down at us, the tears glistening on her cheeks.  And I could not resist the impulse to mount the steps once more.

“You were right, Antoinette,” I whispered; “whatever happens, you will remember that I am your friend.  And I will bring him back to you if I can.”