the Mall in London. In the wood-path, Fille took his sister's hand.

"I will tell you what you are so trembling to hear," he said. "There
they are at peace, Jean Jacques and Virginie--that best of best women."

"To think--married to Virginie Poucette--to think of that!" His sister's
voice fluttered as she spoke. "But entirely. There was nothing in the
way--and she meant to have him, the dear soul! I do not blame her, for
at bottom he is as good a man as lives. Our Judge called him 'That dear
fool, Jean Jacques, a man of men in his way, after all,' and our Judge
was always right--but yes, nearly always right."

After a moment of contented meditation he resumed. "Well, when Virginie
sold her place here and went to live with her sister out at Shilah in the
West, she said, 'If Jean Jacques is alive, he will be on the land which
was Zoe's, which he bought for her. If he is alive--then!' So it was,
and by one of the strange accidents which chance or women like Virginie,
who have plenty of courage in their simpleness, arrange, they met on that
three hundred and sixty acres. It was like the genius of Jean Jacques to
have done that one right thing which would save him in the end--a thing
which came out of his love for his child--the emotion of an hour.
Indeed, that three hundred and sixty acres was his salvation after he
learned of Zoe's death, and the other little Zoe, his grandchild, was
denied to him--to close his heart against what seemed that last hope, was
it not courage? And so, and so he has the reward of his own soul--a home
at last once more."

"With Virginie Poucette--Fille, Fille, how things come round!" exclaimed
the little lady in the tiny bonnet with the mauve strings.