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He sprang to meet us at the door, snatching the packet from his son's eager hand. "Well done, Étienne, my champion! An you brought me the crown of France I were not so pleased!" The flush of joy at generous praise of good work kindled on M. Étienne's cheek; it were hard to say which of the two messieurs beamed the more delightedly on the other.
He might easily have approached within touch of my sad clothing without becoming aware of me, but M. Étienne's azure and white caught the lantern rays a rod away. The newcomer stopped short, holding up the light between us and his face. We could make nothing of him, save that he was a large man, soberly clad. "Who is it?" he demanded, his voice ringing out loud and steady. "Is it you, Ferou?"
Neither thought of me, and it was none of my concern what they said to each other. I went a rod or two down the lane, round a curve in the wall, and watched the bands of light streaking the eastern sky, in utter content. Never before had the world seemed to me so good a place. Since this misery had come right, I knew all the rest would; I should yet dance at M. Étienne's wedding.
His eyes were blue, deep, expressive, and beautiful as a woman's, and he had a most engaging air of candour and sincerity. The horse he rode was a splendid animal; my father had not its equal in his stables. "This place of Etienne's," said he, addressing Jacques, "is it far?" "Within a dozen miles, monsieur. You might easily have reached it last night by pushing on."
"Why, captain," cried the man at M. Étienne's elbow, "this is no Comte de Mar! The Comte de Mar is fair-haired; I've seen him scores of times." "The Comte de Mar answers to the name of Étienne, and so does this fellow," the captain answered. He took the candle from one of the lamps and held it in M. Étienne's face. Then he put out a sudden hand, and pulled the wig off.
The sun was clean up over the horizon, and as I blinked and wondered how he had contrived the feat so quickly, my two messieurs came hand in hand round the corner to me, the level rays glittering on Monsieur's burnished breastplate, on M. Étienne's bright head, and on both their shining faces.
The little old man took his wife by the arm, saying, in an icy tone: "So this is you, madame!" This sudden advent of conjugal authority, before which she felt herself so small, and, above all, these words, almost froze the heart of the unhappy woman caught in the costume of a debardeur. To escape Etienne's eye the more effectually, she had chosen a dress he was not likely to detect her in.
"Those songs give me life," said the duchess to Beauvouloir, inhaling the air that Etienne's voice made living. At length the day came when the poor son's mourning began. Already he had felt the mysterious correspondences between his emotions and the movements of the ocean.
He gathered branches of them, with which I filled the Japanese vases on the mantel, and ornamented the corners of the parlor, thus converting it into a flowery grove. I also arranged some Bengal roses and dahlias that had escaped Etienne's culture, and with the addition of some asters and a very few soucis I must confess, I was charmed with the result of my labors.
"A few puffs of smoke in a cognac glass, and the subject is knocked out for an hour after drinking from the nicotine-filmed crystal, bless you," laughed Blunt, "there's never a mark on Etienne's victims. He is too fine for that, only cases of plain, simple, 'accidental drowning. "You may as well address me as 'Joseph Smith, Jersey Arms, Rozel Pier, Jersey. I am solid with Mrs.
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