in the years of my struggle for livelihood which followed, I dreamed of her; I pictured her often in the midst of the darkness of the Revolution.  Then I had the miniature again, which had travelled to her, as it were, and come back to me.  Even then it was not love I felt but an unnamed sentiment for one whom I clothed with gifts and attributes I admired:  constancy, an ability to suffer and to hide, decision, wit, refuge for the weak, scorn for the false.  So I named them at random and cherished them, knowing that these things were not what other men longed for in women.  Nay, there was another quality which I believed was there—­which I knew was there—­a supreme tenderness that was hidden like a treasure too sacred to be seen.

I did not seek to explain the mystery which had brought her across the sea into that little garden of Mrs. Temple’s and into my heart.  There she was now enthroned, deified; that she would always be there I accepted.  That I would never say or do anything not in consonance with her standards I knew.  That I would suffer much I was sure, but the lees of that suffering I should hoard because they came from her.

What might have been I tried to put away.  There was the moment, I thought, when our souls had met in the little parlor in the Rue Bourbon.  I should never know.  This I knew—­that we had labored together to bring happiness into other lives.

Then came another thought to appall me.  Unmindful of her own safety, she had nursed me back to life through all the horrors of the fever.  The doctor had despaired, and I knew that by the very force that was in her she had saved me.  She was here now, in this house, and presently she would be coming back to my bedside.  Painfully I turned my face to the wall in a torment of humiliation—­I had called her by her name.  I would see her again, but I knew not whence the strength for that ordeal was to come.

CHAPTER XIII

A MYSTERY

I knew by the light that it was evening when I awoke.  So prisoners mark the passing of the days by a bar of sun light.  And as I looked at the green trees in the courtyard, vaguely troubled by I knew not what, some one came and stood in the doorway.  It was Nick.

“You don’t seem very cheerful,” said he; “a man ought to be who has been snatched out of the fire.”

“You seem to be rather too sure of my future,” I said, trying to smile.

“That’s more like you,” said Nick.  “Egad, you ought to be happy—­we all ought to be happy—­she’s gone.”

“She!” I cried.  “Who’s gone?”

“Madame la Vicomtesse,” he replied, rubbing his hands as he stood over me.  “But she’s left instructions with me for Lindy as long as Monsieur de Carondelet’s Bando de Buen Gobierno.  You are not to do this, and you are not to do that, you are to eat such and such things, you are to be made to sleep at such and such times.  She came in here about an hour ago and took a long look at you before she left.”