he was treating the immediate past--his and Rosalie's past--as if it did
not actually exist; as if only the other and farther past was a tragedy,
and this nearer one a dream.

But the film fell from his eyes as Maximilian Cour played his 'Baffled
Quest', with its quaint, searching pathos; and as he saw the figure of
the girl alone in the shade of the great rose-bushes, past and present
became one, and the whole man was lost in that one word "Rosalie!" which
called her to her feet with outstretched hands.

The tears sprang to her eyes; her face upturned to his was a mute appeal,
a speechless 'Viens ici'.

Past, present, future, duty, apprehension, consequences, suddenly fell
away from Charley's mind like a garment slipping from the shoulders, and
the new man, swept off his feet by the onrush of unused and ungoverned
emotions, caught the girl to his arms with a desperate joy.

"Oh, do you care, then--for me?" wept the girl, and hid her face in his
breast.

A voice came from inside the house: "Monsieur, Monsieur--ah, come, if you
please, tailor!"

The girl drew back quickly, looked up at him for one instant with a
triumphant happy daring, then, suddenly covered with confusion, turned,
ran to the gate, opened it, passed swiftly out, and was swallowed up in
the dusk.