A chill crept into the cabin and with it Madame Labroquerie, who peered at the comely couple, and said in her grating voice: "You are weary, sir. Daughter, show our guest where he is to rest."
With another courtesy to the Englishman the bitter little woman passed into her own room, and almost immediately the muttering of prayers and clicking of beads disturbed the silence which her entry had created.
"Rest you here," Madeleine whispered, pointing to a palliasse partly covered by a bear-skin. "You shall sleep soundly I promise, for I have filled that palliasse with the sweet-scented grass which grows in yonder valley. May you rest there like Endymion, and may his dreams be yours."
"His dreams were of love—if the old tale be true," said Geoffrey, flushing at his boldness.
"Soft," she prayed, but she too had flushed. "My mother's ears are keen. God be with you, my friend."
"And with you also," he murmured, and raising her fair white hand he pressed it reverently to his lips.
No hostile sound disturbed the silence of the grove throughout that night, and Geoffrey made no stir upon his scented bed, until the sun streaming into the cabin and the noisy turk, turk, turk of the wild bush-fowl rendered further sleep impossible. Having performed the hasty toilet of that age, when by day and night a man had to be prepared to fight for his life, he went outside, and was straightway made welcome to the grove by a brilliant and versatile bluejay, which obtruded itself upon the stranger and with cheerful chattering friendliness volunteered to be his guide in return for a little flattering attention. But when Madeleine came out into the sun, the fickle bird deserted the man and paid court to the maid.
It had been Geoffrey's honest determination to proceed that morning upon his journey, but noon, and then evening, came and found him again a tenant of the grove. All day he and Madeleine wandered in the green valley, like children of innocence in a garden, the girl pointing out her favourite haunts, the flowery ridges where she would while away hours in day-dreams, and guiding him along faint paths which her small feet, and hers only, had trodden into being; and as they so walked Geoffrey forgot for the time his mission, and became blind to the path of duty, because the spell of enchantment was over him, and all the world went far away while Madeleine was laughing at his side, and her sweet voice was in his ears, and her fragrant presence stirred before his eyes. No day had ever been so short, no sun more bright, no self-surrender ever more complete.
Again the grove was in splendour at the close of the day, and again Madame Labroquerie met her guest with a grating word of greeting and her bitter smile; and again the laggard slept upon the scented couch and had his dreams; and his dreams that night were not of power, nor of duty, nor of his harassed friends beside Couchicing; but of shaded bowers, and green valleys, and love in life, and Madeleine. And once the girl cried out in her sleep, but neither her mother nor her lover overheard her unconscious utterance, "I cannot let you go."
But during the day which followed Geoffrey's conscience awoke and reproached him for this love-in-idleness, and as the evening of that day drew near his higher self conquered. Lying at Madeleine's feet, he told her with averted face that on the morrow he must depart; and she merely sighed very softly and made no answer, but longed in her heart that the morrow might never come.