"So I gave in. And then when Arthur had to be hidden we came here with him—to wait."
She became aware that the man was staring at her with something strange and terrible in his gaze, and she broke off in wonder. The air of that warm summer morning turned all at once keen and sharp about them—charged with moment.
"Mademoiselle!" cried Ste. Marie. "Mademoiselle, are you telling me the truth?"
For some obscure reason she was not angry. Again she spread out her hands in that gesture of weariness. She said—
"Oh, why should I lie to you?" And the man began to tremble exceedingly. He stretched out an unsteady hand.
"You—knew Arthur Benham last winter?" he said. "Long before his—before he left his home? Before that?"
"He asked me to marry him last winter," said the girl. "For a long, long time I—wouldn't.... But he never let me alone. He followed me everywhere. And my father——"
Ste. Marie clapped his two hands over his face, and a groan came to her through the straining fingers. He cried in an agony—
"Mademoiselle! mademoiselle!"
He fell upon his knees at her feet, his head bent in what seemed to be an intolerable anguish, his hands over his hidden face. The girl heard hard-wrung, stumbling, incoherent words, wrenched each with an effort out of extreme pain.