These simple folk would marry, beget children, labour hard,
obey Mother Church, and yield up the ghost peacefully in the end, after
their kind; but now and then there was born among them one not after
their kind: even such as Madelinette, with the stirring of talent in her
veins, and the visions of the artistic temperament--delight and curse all
at once--lifting her out of the life, lonely, and yet sorrowfully happy.
Valmond looked around. How still it was, the home of Elise standing apart
in the quiet fields! But involuntarily his eyes were drawn to the hill
beyond, where showed a light in a window of the Manor. To-morrow he would
go there: he had much to say to Madame Chalice. The moon was lying off
above the edge of hills, looking out on the world complacently, like an
indulgent janitor scanning the sleepy street from his doorway.
He was abruptly drawn from his reverie by the entrance of Lagroin into
the little garden; and he followed the old man through the open doorway.
All was dark, but as they stepped within they heard some one move.
Presently a match was struck, and Elise came forward with a candle raised
level with her dusky head.
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