| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| I. | [Running Water] | 1 |
| II. | ["Roses, Roses all the Way"] | 29 |
| III. | [In the Dust] | 40 |
| IV. | [The Captive Hawk] | 98 |
| V. | [Free—with a Broken Wing] | 125 |
| VI. | [The Road to the Beech Tree] | 171 |
| VII. | [The Road Back] | 230 |
| VIII. | [The Love of Women] | 268 |
| IX. | [The Toledo Blade] | 323 |
| X. | ["Sans Tache"] | 395 |
CHAPTER I - RUNNING WATER
"Without a horse, and a dog, and a friend, man would perish. The Gods gave me all three, and there is no gift like friendship. Remember this . . . when you become a young man. For your fate will turn on the first true friend you make."
RUDYARD KIPLING, Puck of Pook's Hill ("On the Great Wall").
(1)
The lady who was writing at the rosewood escritoire near the window paused, and with the feather end of the quill traced along the days of the month on a little calendar headed "1814" which was propped up behind the ink-stand.
"April the twelfth," she murmured, and wrote it at the top of the already finished letter under her hand.
She was not young—forty-five at least—but she was distinctly charming in her very short-waisted, close-fitting gown of lilac sarcenet. The irregular-shaped room, cool and fresh and sunlit, opened by a small bow-window on her left hand on to a garden that could not have been other than English. And she herself looked English, yet she had just signed a French name at the bottom of her letter, while over the mantelpiece hung the portrait of a middle-aged man with a refined and thoughtful face who did not even look English.
The door opened, and a man's voice could be heard speaking to someone outside.
"Laurent, is that you?" asked the lady, without looking up. She was sealing her letter. "Dearest, are you going out? Will you take this note to Mesdames Tantes, if you, are passing?—Where are you going, by the way?"