decipher the contents—he had found no difficulty in making his way to her.
He had learned before he entered that Tavannes was abroad, and was aware, therefore, that he ran little risk. But his betrothed, who knew nothing of his adventures in the interval, saw in him one who came to her at the greatest risk, across unnumbered perils, through streets swimming with blood. And though she had never embraced him save in the crisis of the massacre, though she had never called him by his Christian name, in the joy of this meeting she abandoned herself to him, she clung to him weeping, she forgot for the time his defection, and thought only of him who had returned to her so gallantly, who brought into the room a breath of Poitou, and the sea, and the old days, and the old life; and at the sight of whom the horrors of the last two days fell from her—for the moment.
And Madame Carlat wept also, and in the room was a sound of weeping. The least moved was, for a certainty, M. de Tignonville himself, who, as we know, had gone through much that day. But even his heart swelled, partly with pride, partly with thankfulness that he had returned to one who loved him so well. Fate had been kinder to him than he deserved; but he need not confess that now. When he had brought off the coup which he had in his mind, he would hasten to forget that he had entertained other ideas.
Mademoiselle had been the first to be carried away; she was also the first to recover herself.
“I had forgotten,” she cried suddenly, “I had forgotten,” and she wrested herself from his embrace with violence, and stood panting, her face white, her eyes affrighted. “I must not! And you—I had forgotten that too! To be here, Monsieur, is the worst office you can do me. You must go! Go, Monsieur, in mercy I
