she had brought to aid her in this interview.
It was, indeed, a royal person upon whom the eyes of the Drummer's Daughter fell,—a person whose dignity and grace held at a distance even those whom they attracted. Nothing short of reverence could have dictated the movement of any noble mind that had to do with her. She was the Sister of Mercy, whom the whole country round about knew for the most righteous Desperiers of them all. The noble line was ending nobly in her pure and lofty and most gracious womanhood. She was the star of society, if the "sweet influences" might only be bound,—no comet, no fiery splendor of intellect or passion, but a pure light that would still shine through all paling, and enter with its own distinct ray into the last absorption.
She approached to meet her guest with a kind and frank expression of regret that she should have been kept waiting so long.
Beholding her, remembering him, strong even through her sense of impotence, Elizabeth unrolled the pencilling of Foray. The moment during which she was thus occupied passed in silence; then she looked up and spoke, with the coldness in which her embarrassment and emotion sought disguise.
"I came here with a message,—on an errand," said she; "and I have come so far, that, finding myself really in this house, I did not like to leave it again till I had seen the lady I sought. I knew that it would give you pain, if you could know the whole."
"Tell me the whole," was the reply, spoken with evident and encouraging approval of the stranger's mode of address; and the lady sat down in the great chair on one side of the table. "Be seated; tell me your wish."
"It is to serve you," said Elizabeth, a little proudly. "I have not come to ask favor for myself or mine. I came across the sea for you and him."
She spoke now with vehemence, and as she spoke glanced at the portrait in the alcove. Quickly the eyes of Madeline Desperiers followed hers. How had this stranger managed to discover what was so securely hidden from the observation of ordinary eyes? She did not even suspect the light which had illumined that dim recess, and made it brighter to the gazer than the bright garden even.
"This is Foray," said Elizabeth, exposing now the token that would instantly make all plain and equal between them. "I should have sent it to you, Madam, when I wrote; but there was more to be done,—and so I came. I am Elizabeth Montier. I am a soldier's daughter; so, he said, are you."
The lady's answer was not at first by speech. She arose, swiftly as light moves she moved, and brought her guest up to the window of the shadowy room. Well she scanned the face of Elizabeth.
"Truth," she murmured. "It was you that wrote. You are Truth. You speak it. Blessings on you! Blessings descend upon you from all the saints and heroes who have moved and suffered here! Do you come from him,—Stephen Cordier?"
How proudly and how tenderly she spoke that name! To hear her soothed the heart of Elizabeth Montier,—soothed her, and made her strong.
"Is that his name?" she asked, pointing to the portrait. "We call him Manuel." She paused a moment, but not for an answer. Before Madeline could speak, she went on,—
"If you can hear me, I will tell you of him, and why I am here."
"Tell me all. I can bear to hear anything that you can endure to tell. You are his friend. I claim you for mine, too. You came to find me. Speak."
This was the utterance of a calm self-knowledge. By what she had endured, the woman knew what she could yet endure.
Without pause Elizabeth now spoke. Without interruption the lady listened,—listened while this young stranger told
