merrily under his astonished gaze.  He examined the thing more
carefully, his bewilderment increasing, noting the curious
construction, which was unlike that of the toy bells which had adorned
the necks of the wooly beasts abroad at Christmas-time.  It was heavy
for its size, and when he moved it had a decisive and very mellow note.
Who would send him a thing like this and why?  There must have been a
mistake.  He took up the paper wrapper from the waste basket and
examined it with renewed interest.

John Markham, Esquire,
--West--th Street,
New York City.

With a stamp of the French Republic and a postmark of--What were the
postmarks?  Paris.  Of course.  And the other?  VAL-E--?  Valence?
Valence was in the South of France on the Rhone.  He had never been
there.  No.  That wouldn't do.  VAL-L-E--VallŽcy!

A brass bell from VallŽcy!  Still he did not understand.  He took the
object up again and scrutinized it, its meaning dawning slowly.
VallŽcy!  That was the village where he and Hermia had stayed with
Mre GuŽgou.  There was the garden of the golden roses where--The
bell!  It was from Hermia's head-dress--the belled cap of the _Femme
Orchestre_!  He knew it now.  It was a token.  Hermia had sent it--from
VallŽcy.  A token.

In high excitement he examined the obscure postmark again.  The accent
on the E, a little smudged, but quite legible.  Hermia had sent the
bell as a token from Vagabondia which meant that she was there in Pre
GuŽgou's garden, whither she had fled when her own world had renounced
her.  She was waiting for him.  She needed him, and took this means of
showing him that all things that had happened to them both since they
had parted in the forest at SŽes were to be forgotten--that they were
both to take life up--from VallŽcy.  He stood a moment in joyous
uncertainty, his glance on the clock, then, quickly wrapping the
memento in its tissue paper, thrust it into his coat pocket and in a
moment was striding like a madman down the street.  At his apartment he
rang for a taxicab, thrust a few things into a suitcase, wrote a note
or two and in half an hour was on his way to the bank and then to the
steamship wharf.

He had no definite plans except that he must take the first steamer
which left New York for Europe.  A brief glance at his morning paper
advised him of two sailings this morning, one for Havre and the other
for Cherbourg, and he had made up his mind to take one steamer or the
other.  The taxicab crawled, it seemed, and on the way downtown was
caught in a block of traffic which delayed him for ten minutes, during
which he fumed silently.  But he reached the dock with scarcely a
quarter of an hour to spare, and after a difficulty which was cleared
away, found himself upon the deck of the _Kaiserin Augusta_, a somewhat
flustered individual, with many loose ends dangling in retrospect, with
no cabin as yet assigned to him, sober of face but inexpressibly happy.

It was really not until his ship was well out at sea and the voyage
fairly begun that Markham had the opportunity to settle down
comfortably and mediate upon the surprising events of the morning.  He
found a steamer chair in a quiet place and then gave himself up to his
thoughts.  He took the tiny object from his breast pocket and turned
it over in his fingers.  Of course it was Hermia's.  The wonder was
that he had not recognized it at first glance.  This bell and its
other small companions had tinkled their way into his heart at each
step she had taken down the long road from Evreux to
Alenon--tinkled merrily at Passy, joyously at VallŽcy,
disdainfully at Verneuil, and contentedly at La Mesle.  Alenon
had made them tragic so they had been packed in Hermia's bundle which
went with her to SŽes and were heard no more, except in a faint
tinkle of protest as she was put aboard the train for Paris.
Wonderful bells they were, tiny chimes that had rung in the season of
their joy and lingered in their memory never to be forgotten.
Tokens--Hermia had realized it--symbols of her greatest happiness and
his, with life reduced to the simplest elements, in which there had
been no place for the extravagant commonplaces of the other life which
they both had lived and endured.  Hermia had fled to VallŽcy to
the motherly breast of Mre GuŽgou, and there perhaps
was weeping out her troubles.  He took out the square of paper (he had
clipped it with his penknife) which bore the address and examined it
again.  This and the bell were all he had had to start him off on his
fateful pilgrimage.  But they were enough.  She could not have written
him after her treatment of him in New York.  She had thrown herself
upon his mercy, given her message ambiguity that he might ignore it if
he chose, or read, as she had hoped he would, the message of her
heart, across the distances.  It was the message of a vagabond like
himself, as definite a message as the gypsy _patteran_ which shows the
way from one camp to another.  His _patteran_ pointed to
VallŽcy, that lovely village by the Arth where he had first
told Hermia that he loved her.  Beyond VallŽcy had come
misunderstanding, bitterness, misfortune.  She had chosen that spot as
though by instinct.  She wanted him to remember her there where love
had first been spoken.  Alone and waiting for him among the roses of
Pre GuŽgou--

He started up from his chair in bewilderment, staring blankly at the
sunlit sea, suddenly mindful of the fact that in the hurry of getting
away he had not cabled her.  He threw his rugs aside and made his way
hastily to the office, to find unluckily that the wireless had gotten
out of order, and that it might be several hours before it was
repaired.  He strolled on deck again, thoughtful, suddenly impressed
with the potency of the charm that had called him.  The thought of
replying to her message had not until this moment entered his head.
All that he had been able to think of was that he must get to her at
once, follow the _patteran_ at top speed.  He had done so and now
unhappily remembered a dozen neglected people who must wonder at his
extraordinary disappearance.  But he only smiled joyously.  He had
another engagement.

He took up his walk along the promenade deck, careless of the enemies
he had made, careless of the friendships he might lose, all his
thoughts of the small vagabond at VallŽcy.  His inability to
communicate with her by wireless set him thinking.  Wasn't that, too, a
symbol?  If he got a message over what would be its effect?  Would she
still wait for him, looking forward to the precious hour of their
meeting?  Or would her mind change at the last moment and send her
flying from him again?  This was more like Hermia, the real Hermia that
he knew.  He feared her moods still.  And if he refused to cable her
would her patience last until he got to France?  He cast is memory over
the months that had passed in New York.  He guessed how much she had
suffered.  He had followed her social career through the newspapers and
he knew now that she had gone gaily that she might hide her terror.
She was tired--poor child--tired in body and spirit, and that was why
she had not stayed in Paris among the fashionable people she knew
there; that was why she had fled to VallŽcy, where at least she might
be at peace, unreminded by those of her own social sphere of the
villainous story which pursued her.  There at VallŽcy she sat remote,
with her own innocence for company, convalescent--amid these primitive
surroundings--from the sickness that her world had given her.  She
would wait for him _if she wasn't sure that he would come_.  He smiled.
He would not send the wireless.  Nor would he wire her from Cherbourg.

A search of the postmark of his much-beloved package revealed the date
"_Av. 22_."  She had sent her token on the twenty-second of April and
it was now only the second of May.  Ten days only had passed, and he
was already well on his way to her.  In less than a week more he would
be in VallŽcy.  She would wait for him.  Markham, as will be observed,
was learning something about women--about one woman at least, the only
woman in the world who mattered.

The voyage seemed interminable, through the ship was a fast one, and
the day's run (on paper) highly satisfactory.  He knew no one aboard
but some of the officers, with whom he had crossed before, and he was
thankful that he was therefore left alone with his thoughts, which were
infinitely more pleasing to him than the chatter of the salon or
smoking-room.  He read novels, or tried to, but his own story was so
much more interesting, so much more real than those he could find that
he gave them up after a trial or two and lived again his own romance.
The time to take it up again where he had left it off came slowly, but
at last the _Lizard_ hove into sight and the passengers for France
prepared for debarkation.  Morning of the next day found Markham in the
express to Paris.  Evreux was his station, and from there to Verneuil
was a little over an hour, most of it along the road he and Hermia had
so blithely traveled.  The road from Verneuil to VallŽcy--he would
cover it afoot if there were no vehicles to be begged, borrowed or
stolen.


CHAPTER XXIX

DUO

At some distance from the village street he dismissed the vehicle which
had brought him from Verneuil, a rickety affair drawn by an emaciated
horse, and suitcase in hand strode up the hill toward the house of
Madame GuŽgou, the garden wall of which was visible beyond the
flowering orchard.  The air was laden with odors, sweet with the smell
of the fruit blossoms and early shrubs.  In the meadow to the left some
goats were grazing and, as he passed, the wether raised his head and
examined him incuriously, its bell clanking solemnly.  The sun was
already beyond the profile of the forest; beyond the sleepy village and
against the warm sky thin threads of purple smoke ascended in
perpendicular lines and then drifted lazily down to the mist of the
valley below.  Nature breathed slowly, deeply, as though aware that its
state was not a matter of days or even of years, but of an eternity,
during which its evolution must not be hurried.

After the turmoil of steamer and railroad this silence was oppressive.
Minute sounds came to Markham across the distances, the bark of a dog,
the lowing of cattle, a shutter closing, human voices near and far,
each one distinct, but each mellowed and softened as though strained
through a silver mesh.  He missed the shudder of the steamer, the
rattle of the train, the jolting even of the station wagon from which
he had just descended; for they were all a part of the fever of his
voyage made in such mad haste, sounds which had soothed and given him
patience, their very turbulence assuring him that he was losing no time
upon the way.  And now that he had reached his destination, a violent
reaction had set in.  He was still moving forward toward the house with
the walled garden, but a fear obsessed him that perhaps after all there
had been a mistake.  What if, after all, Hermia were not here?  His
suitcase gained in weight and he perspired gently.  Why hadn't he
cabled her at the first moment of his decision to sail or why hadn't he
relayed his wireless across when the opportunity had offered?  All his
hopes seemed to be slipping from his finger ends.  Was this Vagabondia?
It seemed different somehow.  He was aware of his neatly creased
trousers, his bowler hat, his gloves, and the leather bag which reeked
of sophistication.  He was an anachronism, or VallŽcy was.  They were
not attune.  He and VallŽcy clashed discordantly.

Timorously, almost upon tiptoe, he reached the village street.  A dog
emerged from a field, sniffed at the crease of his trousers
suspiciously and growled.  At this moment Markham desired anything but
commotion, so he chirped to the animal and stroke on, his head bent,
his gaze on the portal of the _ancien_, which, as he noted, was
forbiddingly closed.  He paused a moment, eyeing the cur which stopped
when he stopped, still regarding him uncertainly.  And then summoning
his courage he went to the door and knocked.  This noise, which sounded
faintly enough to Markham, seemed to be the demonstration of hostility
the dog was waiting for, and it began barking furiously, snapping
almost at Markham's immaculate heels, a signal which was taken up
immediately, near and far, by every cur in the village.  Curious heads
were poked out of windows, and at last after a few moments his door was
opened just wide enough for the head of his former hostess to inspect
him.

"Madame GuŽgou," he began uncertainly and then paused.

The door opened a trifle wider.

"It is I," she remarked, her gaze on the suitcase.  "I can buy nothing,
Monsieur."

He laughed uneasily.

"You do not remember me, Madame?" he asked.

She relinquished the door-knob and emerged, inspecting his clothing.

"You are from Paris, of course.  Last year perhaps, you came--"

"I did--last summer, Madame.  I am Philidor--the artist."

"You!  Monsieur!  _You_ Philidor!"  She leaned forward upon the step,
her eyes searching his face.  "Philidor was not such as you.  He wore a
beard and--"  She suddenly caught him by the shoulder and turned him
toward the sunset.  "I might think--and yet--"

"I am Philidor," he repeated, laughing.  "I came in search of--of
Yvonne."

"You--are he!  It is true.  The saints be praised!"  She threw the door
inside open and called:  "Jules!  Jules!  He is come.  Monsieur
Philidor is here!"

The _ancien_ limped forward from the inner darkness, showing his gums.

"I knew it," he cried triumphantly.  "Did I not say that he would
return?"

Markham took the bony fingers, his anxious gaze going past them toward
the glow of the kitchen.

"And Yvonne?" he asked feverishly.  "She is within?"

"She is here, yes, she is here--waiting for you."

He dropped his valise and strode past them eagerly.  A pot simmered
upon the fire, the table gave evidence of a recent repast, and a pile
of dishes nearby stood mutely in evidence, but of Hermia there was no
sign.

"_Tiens_!"  Madame GuŽgou was muttering.  "She was here but a moment
ago.  In the garden, perhaps--"

He dashed out of the rear door and down the graveled walk.

"Hermia!" he called, and then again, "Hermia!"

He reached the arbor just in time to see her speed across the lower end
of the meadow and vanish into the trees.  Hatless he leaped the low
wall and followed, joy giving him wings, while the old couple
wonderingly watched from the doorway.  They were mad, these two.  She
had been waiting for him a month and now--she fled.  Mad?  But what was
love but madness?

Markham sprang into the cover of the trees where he had seen her
disappear and followed the path up the hill breathlessly.  She would
escape him now, even, when she had sent for him and he had come to
her!  She could not go far.  The cover was thin.  He would have called
again, but he spared his breath, for he knew that she would not reply.
He reached the end of the path and scanned the hill beyond.  She could
not have gone that way.  He turned and plunged among the pine trees to
his right where the woods were thicker.  It was getting darker, but he
saw her white skirt, gray in the shadows--saw it--lost it and found it
again in the deep wood.  He sprang forward over fallen trees, through
brambles, over rocks, down the slope to the streamside and caught her
behind a tree where she had hidden away from him.

"Hermia!" he cried.  "Hermia, you witch!  What a dance you've led me!
But I have you now--I have you--"

And so he had--in both of his arms, his lips seeking hers.  But she
denied him.

"Did you think you could escape me--again?" he laughed, "when I've come
half across the world for you?"

"You--you frightened me," she gasped.

"How did I frighten you?"

"I did--didn't expect you--"

"You sent for me?"

"I--I thought you would have cabled--"

He laughed joyously.

"Cabled the hour of my arrival, and found you--missing!  I know you
now, you see.  I took no chances.  As it is, you tried to get away--"

"I didn't get far--"

"That wasn't your fault.  You tried.  Why did you run?"

She was silent, her head still hidden.  He repeated the question.

"I--I don't know."

"Do I frighten you now?"

"Not so much."

He held her more closely in his arms, and kissed the crown of her head,
which was the only object offered.

"I know," he whispered, "because you had given me everything except
yourself--and you knew that I would take that."

"No, no."

"What, then?"

Silence.

"I had feared--" she paused.

"What had you feared?"

"That you might not come.  You didn't reply--"

"This is my reply."

He raised her lips slowly to his own and took them.  Her eyes were
closed as though she feared to open them, and show him the dawn of her
womanhood.  But in a moment her figure relaxed in his arms and her head
sank upon his shoulder in token of surrender.

"Mad little Hermia!" he whispered.

"Mad no longer," she sighed.

"You must prove it.  I'll not let you go until I'm sure you won't go
flying from me again."

"I don't want you to let me go.  I want you to hold me tight.  It
is--rest.  I'm tired of going.  I want to stay--here."

"You love me?"

This time she opened her eyes wide and let him see that what she said
was true.  She had outgrown her adolescence--her madness, unless it
could be called madness to love as she did.  Her eyes were deep wells
of mystery, in which he saw, as from the distant brink above, his own
image, clear amid the shadows.  There were signs of trouble in them,
too, as though she had thought long and distressfully, but greater than
the marks of pain were the sweeter tokens of a love and trust
unalterable.

She sank upon a rock, he beside her, her head on his breast.  The dusk
fell swiftly, its shadows enfolding them.  He kissed her again and
again, her lips trembled upon his as she murmured the words so long
unspoken.

"Philidor, I love you--I love you.  It was so long--the waiting."

"You needn't have waited, dear," he said gently.

"Oh, don't reproach me!  I can't bear it.  It had to be.  Olga--she
smirched us--your love and mine--made--"

He stopped her lips with kisses, smiling inwardly and thinking of the
wisdom of Mrs. Hammond.

"There is no Olga--" he murmured, "no gossip but the whisper of the
stream which knows the truth."

"Yes--the truth.  That is all that matters, isn't it?  But that
play--shall I ever forget it?"

"Sh--child.  You must forget.  A lie never lives."

"I will forget.  I don't care--now.  Let them say what they choose.
But I _did_ suffer, Philidor."

"And I.  You were cruel, dear."

"I had to be cruel.  I feared that you--that I--"

She paused and he questioned gravely.

"I feared that you, too, might have misjudged me--there in the woods at
SŽes--that I had cheapened myself to you--that I had been unwomanly."

"Hermia!"

"I don't know what possessed me after Olga appeared.  She poisoned the
very air with doubt.  I was desperate.  I didn't seem to care what
happened.  I don't know what I wanted.  I think if you had taken me
then and held me--as you do now--held me close to you and had not let
me go, as you did, you might have had me to do as you willed.  But you
relinquished me--"

"I had to, dear."

"Yes, I understand now.  I couldn't then.  I wanted to hurt you--as I
was hurt.  Your sanity made me desperate.  I couldn't understand why
you should be so sane while I was not.  You were greater than I--and
though I loved you for it (O Philidor, how I loved you!) I meant that
you should pay for my heart-throbs--that you should pay for Olga--for
everything."

"I have paid."

"Forgive me.  I suffered doubly in knowing that you suffered.  I fled
from you and hid my heart as a miser would buy his treasure.  But your
letters, forwarded from Paris, followed me.  O Philidor!  I did not
read them--not at first.  I saw Olga telling that story at the dinner
table and my pride revolted.  I put them away--unopened, and kept them
concealed--from others, from myself and tried to forget them.  I
couldn't. They were you.  I would take them out and look at them.  I
slept with them under my pillow.  At last I could stand it no longer.
I took them and disappeared for a whole day from the rest of my party.
I read them alone on the summit of a mountain."  She broke off with a
sigh.  "Ah me!  If you had come to me there you would not need to have
pleaded, Philidor."

"My Hermia!"

"You were with me that day.  Didn't you know it?"

"I was with you every day, child."

She smiled happily.

"When I got down to Evian at nightfall they were searching for me.
They thought that I had fallen and been killed.  They reproved me.  I
was calm and smiling, my spirit still soaring to you across the
distances.  I had made up my mind to go to you the next day."

"Oh, if you had--!"

"In the morning," she went on, "came your letter telling me that you
were sailing for New York.  It wasn't like the other letters.  You were
reproachful and you were going away from me.  It chilled me a
little--after the day before.  Olga's face interposed--again.  And so I
let you go.  You see I'm telling you everything."

"Go on, dear."

"I got no more of your letters for a time--for a long time--"

"I wrote you--"

"Yes--from New York.  There was some mistake.  I didn't get those
letters until long after--until I reached New York--until after I had
seen you.  Meanwhile, I feared--that you had cooled--that Olga had done
something to change you--"

"Not that--"

"I feared her.  I knew then that she was capable of anything.  I heard
that she was again in New York and sensed that you must have seen her--"

"I did see her," he put in grimly.

"I didn't know what had happened.  I made up my mind to ignore her--to
ignore _you_--to forget you and to make you forget, if I could, what
had happened."

"That was impossible."

"I knew it, but I tried.  O my dear, if you had known my pains at
making you suffer!  It was hard.  But I did it.  When you came to the
house--"

"Don't speak of that," he muttered.  "It was not Hermia that I saw."

"Not _this_ Hermia.  It was a girl that even _I_ did not know.  I had
rehearsed that conversation and I carried it through to the end."

"The end--of all things, it seemed."

She drew more closely into the shelter of his arms and drew his lips
down to hers.

"Yes--but we shall make a new beginning----And then," she went on,
after a moment, "I saw Olga and cut her.  I hadn't meant to--but I
couldn't help it.  The sight of her turned me to ice.  And Pierre de
Folligny--"  She stopped again, her brows tangling.  "That man!  He
remembered me.  He presumed.  He was odious.  I had the butler show him
the door.  I--I wasn't very wise, I think.  But I couldn't,
Philidor,--I simply _couldn't_ temporize with a man of his caliber."

"D--n him!" said Markham.

"He told--I think--of Olga did--"

"It was De Folligny," he groaned.  "But I couldn't do anything.  That
would have made things worse."

"Oh, yes--and then the play--that dreadful play!  That was Olga's
doing.  I was _there_, Philidor, at Rood's Knoll.  I saw it all.
Listened in terror to every word of the dreadful sacrilege.  It _was_
sacrilege!--to see my love and yours pictured the dreadful thing that
that love was.  I got out somehow.  They were talking of me--lightly.
I heard them; as they talked of--of other women who do not know right
from wrong--as they would have talked of that dreadful Frenchwoman
who--who was killed."

She was sobbing gently on his shoulder, her slender body quivering and
drawing closer.  "Oh, I have paid--paid in full for my fault--"

He soothed her, but she started back, holding him at arm's length, her
eyes the more lovely through their tears, "But I regret nothing.  I
would suffer more, if I might, to know what I know.  I have learned the
meaning of life, Philidor.  I bless my pain for the new meaning it has
given my joy.  I bless _your_ pain even, dear, for the new meaning it
has given your unselfishness.  You thought only of me, of my happiness
when I had paid you only misery."

"There shall be no more pain," he murmured.  "There is no room for it.
Joy shall crowd it out."

"Will you forgive me?" she asked.

"I'll try," he smiled.  "Will you promise never to run away from me
again?

"Where should I run?"

He meditated a moment and then said with a smile:

"To Trevelyan M--"

But she put her fingers over his lips before he could finish.

"Don't Philidor.  Wherever I went, I should not go to Trevvy."  She
laughed.  "He cast me off, you know."

"Cast _you_ off?"

She nodded.  "He heard that story at Rood's Knoll after I had gone.
The next day he came to my house in town.  I saw him.  He wore a
woe-begone expression and silently presented a clipping from a paper."
She laughed again.  "He looked like a virtuous undertaker presenting a
bill, long overdue, for the interment of some lightly mourned relative.
He asked me if the story were true.  I said it was--and he went out of
the house--casting not even one longing, lingering look behind!"

"But it _wasn't_ true."

"That's just the point--but he thought so.  Would _you_ have believed
me that kind of a girl?  You could have, you know, and didn't."  She
sighed happily, and sank back into his arms.  "I think I don't want
people to be _too_ excellent, Philidor.  Just human--"

"Were you"--he hesitated a moment--"were you engaged to him, Hermia?"

She gazed at him wide-eyed.

"Never," she asserted, and then repeated, "Never, never, never!"

"But the newspapers--"

"O Philidor!  How could I have been engaged to Trevvy when I--I was
already engaged to you?"

"Engaged."

"Yes, promised.  After the forest at SŽes I knew it then.  I could
never have loved anyone else.  Why, Philidor, you held me like this,
and kissed me--"

"You loved me then--and before--?"

She hesitated demurely.

"Yes--before."

"Before, Alenon?"

"Y--yes."

"Before Verneuil?"

She smiled and nodded.

"Here--at VallŽcy?"

"Before that."

"You adorable child!  Passy?"

"Yes?"

He was now really astounded.  What she added astounded him still more.

"I think it began before 'Wake Robin'?"

"Thimble Island?"

She stammered.  "I--I think it really began in your studio."

"In New York?"

"You interested me--and you snubbed me so completely.  You were so
impolite, John Markham.  I was curious about you.  You were like no man
I had ever met.  You told me the truth.  I didn't like it, but I
respected you for telling it.  When I went away I remember wanting to
see you again.  AT Thimble Island--"

"Yes?"

She hid her face in his breast and the words came slowly.

"My visit to--to Thimble Island--I--I knew you were there.  My m--motor
_didn't_ miss fire, Philidor?"

He raised her head and made her look at him.  Even in the wan light her
face was rosy with her confession.  But she laughed joyously.

"I wanted to snub you for being so rude to me.  Alas!  I ended by--by
scrubbing your floor."

"Diana of the Tubs!  How you scrubbed!"

"I liked it.  You were very nice at Thimble Island, Philidor."  She
paused a moment.  "Then Olga came--and the others.  She quite owned
you, then, didn't she?"

"No," he replied slowly.