My brother and her mother set her down between them, and I had nought to do but to put in order the baby-house, till a great bell clanged through the house, which was the signal for dinner.  Madame van Hunker was calmer by that time, and let Eustace hand her down, and place her at the head of the table, where she had around her no less than four families and two widows of our poor exiled Cavaliers and clergy.  We had not found ourselves in so English a world for years past.

The hostess sat as one in a dream, doing her part like one moved by wires, and eating scarce anything, while Eustace showed all his usual courtliness of manner and grace.  After dinner, he rested on a couch, as was his wont, before going back, and Millicent drew me into her chamber and wept on my neck, as she made me tell her all she had not been able to learn from him.

He had been very tender with her, and tried to persuade her that it was all for the best, and that there was happiness for them in the having no one between them now.  She, poor woman, would fain, as I saw, have thrown aside all her houses and wealth to be his, and to tend him, were it merely for a few weeks, and she felt as if her love was strong enough to be his cure; but he had spoken of the cruel selfishness of giving away her power of aiding all these our fellow-countrymen in order that they two might come together for what he knew would be so brief a time.  Yet he had not taken all hope from her, for he had talked of their reconsidering the matter if he were in better health after the winter, and, meantime, they could see each other often.

Poor thing!  I believe she expected the miracle that might make him yet recover, and so she bore up, while Eustace was verily happy—­ having lived, as it were, nearly into spiritual love, and left behind that which had been earthly and corporeal, and thus he was content to rest.  He had strained himself very hard to accomplish the journey, bring Clement and me into safety, and see Millicent again, and when the effort ceased, we fully saw, for the first time, how great it had been, and how far he was gone on that other journey.  I do not think he crossed the threshold of our lodging half a dozen times after our arrival; but Millicent came into her town-house, and was with him every day.  She had fitted the great dining chamber of that town-house as a chapel for our English service, and my brother went thither on two Sundays, on the second of which he saw M. Darpent received into our English Protestant Church.  Clement had long inclined that way, having never forgotten the Huguenot training of his childhood, and the studies he had made, when his mother impelled him towards Port Royal, having resulted in farther doubts and yearning towards what Eustace had told him of our doctrine.  Conversation with the learned Dr. Elson, one of our exiled divines, had completed the work, though he made his profession with pain and grief, feeling it a full severance from his country and his mother.