moonlight, two hands put up helplessly.

"Take me away,

oh, take me away!" she said, with a sudden appealing movement. "I can do nothing for you in return, not even love you."

"Ah! do not say that, my child," said Fontaine. "Do not be afraid, all will be well."

A minute later Catherine found herself standing with Fontaine before Madame de Tracy, who looked up from her newspaper with a kind puzzled face. "She consents," said Fontaine; "you were wrong, madame. How shall I ever thank you for making me know her?"

It was Dick who first told Reine the news of the engagement. "I don't half like her to marry that fellow, poor little thing," he said. Reine, who was churning, she always made a point of working harder when Dick was present than at any other time-looked at him over her barrel. "I should not have done it in her place," she said, "but then we are different." Dick thought her less kind at that minute than he had ever known her before.

Love is the faith, and friendship should be the charity of life, and yet Reine in her own happiness could scarcely forgive Catherine for what she had done. Guessing and fearing what she did, she judged her as she would have judged herself. She forgot that she was a strong woman, and Catherine a child still in many things, and lonely and unhappy, while Reine was a happy woman now, at last, for the first time. For her pride had given way, and the struggle was over. Reine, who would not come unwelcome into any family, who still less would consent to a secret engagement, had succumbed suddenly and entirely when she saw Dick standing before her again. She had not answered his letter telling her that he

She had vowed that she When he had gone away

last, the protest died And so it came about

would come and see her once more. would never think of him again. the first time without speaking, she had protested in her heart; but when he spoke to her at away on her lips, and in her heart too. that these two were standing on either side of the churn, talking over their own hopes and future, and poor little Catherine's too. With all her hardness-it came partly from a sort of vague remorse-Reine's heart melted with pity when she thought of her friend, and instinctively guessed at her story.

"Why do you ask me so many questions about Miss George?" Dick said at last. "Poor child, she deserves a better fate."

CHAPTER XII.

PLASTIC CIRCUMSTANCE.

No two windows look one way

O'er the small sea water-thread
Below them. Ah, the autumn day!
I passing, saw you overhead!

R. BROWNING.

ONCE long afterwards, Catherine, speaking of the time before her marriage, said to Reine,-"Ah! Reine, you cannot imagine what it is to have been afraid, as I have been. I am ashamed, when, I think of my cowardice and want of trust; and yet I do not know that if the time were to come again, I might not be as weak, in my foolish, wicked longing for a fancied security."

"I don't know whether strong people are more or less to be pitied than weak ones, when they are in perplexity," Reine answered, brusquely. "You are much mistaken if you think I have never been afraid. I tell you, there have been days when I have been afraid of jumping over the cliff into the sea, like the swine in the scriptures, to escape from the torments of the condemned. But we take things more at our ease now," said Reine, with a sigh. "One would soon die of it, if one was always to be young. And yet, for the matter of that," she added, glancing kindly at Catherine, "you look to me very much as you did when I knew you first." And as

she spoke, Reine, whose hand had not forgotten its cunning, sent a shuttle swiftly whirling, and caught it deftly, while Josette, who had grown up tall and pretty, stood by, scissors in hand, cutting the string into lengths.

But this was long years afterwards, when Catherine looked back, as at a dream, to the vague and strange and unreal time which had preceded her marriage. There had been a quick confusion, a hurry, a coming and going; it seemed to her like a kaleidoscope turning and blending the old accustomed colours and forms of life into new combinations and patterns. Catherine had watched it all with a bewildered indifference. She had taken the step, she was starting on the journey through the maze of the labyrinth, she had not the heart to go back. There had been long talks, and explanations which never explained, and indecisions that all tended one way, and decided her fate as certainly as the strongest resolves. Once she had been on the very point of breaking everything off: and, looking back, she seemed to see herself again; by the seaside, watching the waves and telling them that they should determine; or tête à tête with Fontaine, silent and embarrassed, trying to make him understand how little she had to give him in return for all his attentive devotion. He would not, perhaps he could not, understand her feeling for him. Why was she troubling herself? He looked conscious, elated, perfectly satisfied; for Fontaine, like a wise man, regarded the outside aspect of things, and did not disturb himself concerning their secret and more difficult complications. She had promised to be his wife. She was a charming person, he required no more; he had even declared that for the present he would not touch a single farthing of the small yearly sum which belonged to her. It was to be expended as heretofore upon the education of her sisters. In the

holidays they were to find a home in the chalet. Fontaine felt that he was behaving liberally and handsomely, and it added to his satisfaction. Madame Mérard groaned in agony over her snuff-box at his infatuation. That her son-in-law should marry again, she had always expected. "But never, never, Monsieur Mérard, did I think him capable of a folly like this!" cried the old lady. Monsieur Mérard, who was an extremely fat and good-humoured old gentleman, tried to look as if the matter was not perfectly indifferent to him. There were but three things in life that really mattered; all the rest must be taken as it came; this was his experience :I. Your coffee should be hot in the morning.

II. You should have at least five trumps between you

and your partner.

III. Your washerwoman should not be allowed to starch your shirt-collars into uncomfortable ridges.

That very day she had sent them home in this horrible condition. Monsieur Mérard could not turn his head without suffering. That Fontaine should marry more or less to please Madame Mérard seemed a trifle in such an emergency.

Dick was the only person who doubted the expediency of the proposed arrangement, or at least who said as much to Catherine herself. He found a moment to speak to her alone in the hall.

"Forgive me," he said, "I know I of all people have the least right to speak; but have you thought well over the tremendous importance of the step you are taking? You are young enough to look for something different from . . . . If you wanted a home, Reine is always there. . . . Fontaine is an excellent fellow; but your tastes are so unlike; your whole education and way of thinking."

"You don't know what it is," said Catherine, controlling