"Oh, you will do it ... I feel it! ... And yet, Gilberte, listen ... the secret is yours ... you yourself have the right to know ..."
She answered, with a smile that lifted him into the seventh heaven:
"Guillaume, I do not want to know what you will not know. ... Besides, it matters so little! I was only happy for your mother's sake."
He bent his head and kissed her hands. Presently, they heard Mme. de la Vaudraye tearing up the letter. She said, simply:
"It shall be as you wish, my dear children. But don't you think, Guillaume, that there will be difficulties, that the law requires ...?"
"Never mind the difficulties!" he cried. "We shall see to that later. Everything will be settled as we intend, I am sure of it."
A long silence followed, full of grave sweetness. At the end of it, however, Guil-
