"She wants to speak to you—to thank you. She owes you so much. But I, Laurent, how shall I . . . ?" He paused as if to steady himself, and, abandoning the sentence, merely whispered, "Friend of friends!" and laid his hand over Laurent's where they clutched the rail. Their looks met, and Laurent knew, knew with certainty, that he would always be that to him—that happiness would not loosen the bond which unhappiness had so securely forged.
Then he suddenly perceived Avoye de Villecresne standing there beside her lover. And her face, too, was wonderful. But it was at him that she was looking.
"I shall never forget . . . Laurent!" she said, and held out both her hands.
The End
Transcriber's Note
Throughout the text, the author's and publisher's original typesetting has been used for: choice of roman or italic text for French words and phrases; choice of three-dot or four-dot ellipses.
In addition to the frequent use of em-dashes, the original text also contains double-length em-dashes when an em-dash ends a sentence. These have been rendered in the transcription as ——.
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.