CHAPTER XVIII.
So it came to pass that Bebee's day in the big forest came and went as simply almost as any day that she had played away with the Varnhart children under the beech shadows of Cambre woods.
And when he took her to her hut at sunset before the pilgrims had returned there was a great bewildered tumult of happiness in her heart, but there was no memory with her that prevented her from looking at the shrine in the wall as she passed it, and saying with a quick gesture of the cross on brow and bosom,-- "Ah, dear Holy Mother, how good you have been! and I am back again, you see, and I will work harder than ever because of all this joy that you have given me." And she took another moss-rose and changed it for that of the morning, which was faded, and said to Flamen .-- "Look--she sends you this.

Now do you know what I mean?
One is more content when She is content." He did not answer, but he held her hands against him a moment as they fastened in the rose bud.
"Not a word to the pilgrims, Bebee--you remember ?" "Yes, I will remember.

I do not tell them every time I pray--it will be like being silent about that--it will be no more wrong than that." But there was a touch of anxiety in the words; she was not quite certain; she wanted to be reassured.

Instinct moved her not to speak of him; but habit made it seem wrong to her to have any secret from the people who had been about her from her birth.
He did not reassure her; her anxiety was pretty to watch, and he left the trouble in her heart like a bee in the chalice of a lily.

Besides, the little wicket gate was between them; he was musing whether he would push it open once more.
Her fate was in the balance, though she did not dream it: he had dealt with her tenderly, honestly, sacredly all that day--almost as much so as stupid Jeannot could have done.