It was eleven years almost to a day since M. l'Abbé de Rosemonde, Curé de Val-le-Roi, had toiled up the slope to the Château de Marigny with his young protégé, André Vallon. Then, as now, a hot July sun flooded the pointed roofs with silvery lights. Only a few white fleecy clouds flitted across the cobalt sky. The birds sang in the forest trees; the branches of walnut and sycamore quivered under the breath of a gentle summer breeze. In the valley below, the Allier gurgled softly among the reeds, and the weeping willows along its banks set forth their sweet, sad sighing through the noonday air.

Nature, lovely and impersonal, seemed by her serene beauty to mock at all the turmoil, the hideousness created by men. "Look at me," she seemed to say. "My laws are immutable. I destroy nothing without cause. Death in my infinite wisdom is only the maker of life."

M. le Curé looked about him and sighed. He could almost have wished that God's world would cease to be beautiful since men no longer had eyes to see the glory of His creations. He was an old man now. These last few years had put a heavy burden upon him. Torn between his hatred of the present godless regime and his desire to do what little good he could among these poor misguided folk to whom he had ministered for more than thirty years, he had at last decided to take the oath of allegiance to this impious government which he abhorred, simply because he did not wish to leave Val-le-Roi to its fate. In spite of threats, in spite of persecution, he had managed so far to keep his church open, to hold occasional services, to visit the sick, and to administer the sacraments.

On this beautiful morning in mid-July when he came in sight of the château, he experienced the same heartache which assailed him every time he noted the slow but sure ravages of neglect upon the magnificent pile. It was many years now since flowers had graced the parterres of the garden and thrown their gay note of brilliance against the subdued colouring of the age-old stonework. The bosquest now were withered; the fountains still; marble balustrades and terraces were covered with the soil and litter of years.

The Abbé sighed again and wearily made his way up the perron. The monumental gates opened at a touch; the cracked bell which he pulled echoed weirdly through the silent halls. There were no servants in gorgeous liveries now to wait on visitors; no sound of gaiety or laughter came reverberating through this silence, which seemed as solemn as that of a tomb. The old priest crossed the vast hall and made his way up the great marble staircase and through the length of the gorgeous apartments, which stretched en enfilade to the farthest angle of the château. Here he came to a halt and knocked at the door that faced him. A woman's voice called, "Entrez!" and he stepped into the room.

At sight of him a young girl jumped up from the low stool whereon she had been sitting, threw down a book, and came to greet him with hands outstretched.

"M. l'Abbé!" she cried. "How kind of you to come, and in this heat, too! Do sit down. You must be tired. Papa and I were just saying that perhaps you would not come till later in the day."

The good Curé took the two soft white hands that were so eagerly tendered him and then turned to pay his respects to Monseigneur. Like the Curé himself, Monseigneur le Duc de Marigny had in the past few years become a very old man. Misfortune and anxiety had put a quarter of a century onto his years. Like so many men of his generation and caste, he had made a splendid effort to bear with outward fortitude the terrible calamities that well-nigh overwhelmed him, but obviously the fortitude had only been on the surface. Every line on his face showed that he had suffered and was suffering terribly. He had the appearance of a martyr, conscious of his martyrdom. He had see his friends, his relatives, one by one, either driven to exile or to death, and calmly awaited the hour when he would be called to share their fate. Were it not for his daughter he would have welcomed that hour, nay! even have gone forward boldly to meet it. But there was Aurore, his child, the darling of his shrivelled heart. Because of her he was willing to shelter beneath the protection which his near relationship with that infamous Duc d'Orléans, who had cast his vote in favour of the death sentence on his cousin and King, had so far given him. Because of his cousinship with that man he had escaped persecution at the hands of the Committee of Public Safety: his name had not as yet appeared on the list of the "suspect." He accepted this slur upon it for Aurore's sake, but had suffered agonies of humiliation for this immunity. In his eyes to-day, dimmed not so much with age as with unshed tears, there smouldered the fire of bitter resentment. not even to his daughter, not even to the kindly priest, his one remaining friend, did he open out his innermost thoughts, his desperate longing for revenge.

On this occasion, as indeed always, he greeted the Curé with the greatest friendliness. Cut off from all his friends and all his kindred, the Abbé de Rosemonde seemed like a last link with the happy past. They had become like two old cronies, these two, not talking much to each other, because there were so few pleasant things to talk about, but they often had friendly bouts at chess or piquet, and instinctively the old Duke felt the soothing influence of his friend's Christian philosophy.

Aurore had put a chair in a convenient position, and the Abbé fell into it, panting and blowing, for the day was hot and the climb up the hill steep.

"I wish I could offer you a glass of wine," Monseigneur said with a fretful little sigh, "but I have not a bottle left in the cellar."

Aurore poured out a glass of water for the old priest, who drank it eagerly, and then set to with great energy to mop his streaming face and neck.

"The best wine in the world, monseigneur," he said cheerfully, "is this fresh water from the well. I am not tired, I assure you, my dear little Aurore, and even if I were, your smile would comfort me more thoroughly than the finest bottle of Burgundy."

Monseigneur gave a significant grunt and turned his head away.

"Well!" the priest went on after a moment or two. "What news?"

"The every best," Aurore de Marigny said eagerly. "I found the box I told you about, and, oh! M. l'Abbé, it is full, full of lovely things - stockings and shirts and petticoats. they will be so useful for many of the poor mothers this winter."

She chattered away in great excitement, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed.

"And they won't as much as say 'Thank you!' for them," Monseigneur put in drily.

"Oh, yes, they will!" the girl asserted. "And even if they don't..."

She gave a little shrug. What cared she if she got thanks or no, so long as she could find something to do, something in which to interest herself, to make time slip by a little more swiftly? The days were so long and so dreary! Nothing to do, nothing to think of or to hope for, save to bring now and again the ghost of a smile on Papa's face. To help M. l'Abbé in his charitable work was a perfect godsend, now that she saw her youth slipping by before she had begun to understand the true and inner meaning of such things as happiness and love. She was barely nineteen when her world began to crash about her feet, when she first came face to face with ill-will, malevolence, even hatred. Until that hour the world had been one great thing of beauty. Loveliness was the very essence of her young life. She inhaled love and adulation with every breath she drew. When she took her walks abroad people got out of her way to allow her to pass. Glances of admiration accompanied her all the way she went. Gentle expressions of respect, often a murmured blessing, were the words that most often rang in her ears.

Then suddenly came the crash: an awful cataclysm seemed to sweep the whole of her past into an immeasurable abyss. Glowering looks, sullen glances, objurgations, even insults were cast at her, until she no longer dared to set foot beyond the precincts of the castle. One by one the servants, who she thought loved her, who had seen her grow up from babyhood, fled from the château as from a plague-ridden spot. And slowly her childlike mind began to unfold: it had been closed hitherto to outward things as is a flower bud sheltered beneath a canopy of leaves. But soon her quick intelligence grasped the true significance of what was going on around her, and the Abbé de Rosemonde, with the utmost gentleness and care, helped in the development of her understanding.

Aurore de Marigny never took a gloomy view of life. She accepted a great deal which was rousing her father's bitter resentment as inevitable; as she was very young, she never gave up hope. These years of indigence and anxiety were only transitory: of this she was sure. But while she did her best to infuse some of that hope into her father's soul, she would in the lineliness of her little bedroom shed many a bitter tear over her lost youth. Better times might come presently - they certainly would come, she knew they would - but she would be old by then; her beauty would be gone along with her youth; she would no longer be desirable; she would never learn the great lesson of life, the lesson of Love.