The light of dawn touched Paris, the wastes of snow surrounding her, forests, villages scattered in the forest and plains around Senlis, Chantilly, Boran, PrÉcy. The dark receded in the west; in the east a green light spread upwards from the horizon, touched the banks of the black Oise, the roofs of the houses of PrÉcy, the dark window panes, and the flanks of the granite piers that stood beheaded in the water—all that was left of the great bridge that had crossed from bank to bank.

Above the river stood the station hut and the wooden gates of the level crossing, upon which the night lantern still hung; above again a strip of snow divided the railway line from the road, at the other side of whose stone wall the village itself began, and stretched backwards up a hill.

Upon a patch of snow above the river and below the road stood a flourishing little house covered with gables and turrets; and odd shapes like the newel-posts of staircases climbed unexpectedly about the roof. In summer, fresh with paint, the outside of the house must wave its vulgar little hands into the sky, but now, everything that bristled upon it served only as a fresh support for the snow which hung in deep drifts on its roof, and around its balconied windows. It stood in its own symmetrical walled garden, like a cup in a deep saucer, and within the wall a variety of humps and hillocks showed where the bushes crouched beneath their unusual blanket. One window, facing towards the railway and the river, had no balcony clinging to its stonework, and in the dark room behind it the light of the dawn pressed faintly between the undrawn curtains. A figure stirred upon the bed within, and Fanny, not clearly aware whether she had slept or not, longed to search the room for some heavier covering which, warming her, would let her sink into unconsciousness. Her slowly gathering wits, together with the nagging cold, forced her at last from the high bed on to the floor, and she crossed the room towards the light. In the walled garden below strange lights of dawn played, red, green and amber, like a crop of flowers. The railway lines beyond the garden wall disappeared in fiery bands north and south, lights flashed down from the sky above and winked in the black and polished river; at the limit of the white plain beyond, a window caught the sun and turned its burning-glass upon the snow.

"Chantilly…." A word like the dawn, filled with light and the promise of light! Turning back into the dim room, she flung her coat upon the bed, climbed in and fell asleep. Three hours later something pressed against her bed and she opened her eyes again. The room was fresh with daylight, and Stewart standing beside her carried a rug on her arm and wore a coat over her nightgown. "I'm coming down to have chocolate in your room…."

Fanny watched her. Stewart climbed up beside her wrapped in the rug. A knock at the door heralded the entry of a woman carrying a tray. Fanny watched her too, and saw that she was fresh, smiling, clean and big, and that steam flew up in puffs from the tray she carried. The woman pulled a little table towards the bed and set the tray on it.

"This is Madame Boujan!" said Stewart's voice.

Fanny tried to smile and say "Good morning," and succeeded. She was not awake but knew she was in clover. The cups holding the steaming chocolate were as large as bowls, and painted cherries and leaves glistened beneath their lustre surface. Beside the cups was a plate with rolls, four rolls; and there were knives and two big pots which must be butter and jam.

"Wake up!"

Fanny rolled nearer to the chocolate, sniffed it and pulled herself up in bed. The woman, still smiling beside them, turned and hunted among the clothes upon the chair; then held a jersey towards her shoulders and guided her arms into its sleeves. Ecstasy stole over Fanny; other similar wakings strung themselves like beads upon her memory; nursery wakings when her spirit had been guided into daylight by the crackle of a fire new-lit, by the movements of just such an aproned figure as this, by a smile on just such a pink face; or wakings after illness when her freshening life had leapt in her at the sound of a blind drawn up, at the sight of the white-cuffed hand that pulled the cord.

Oh, heavenly woman, who stood beside the tray, who fed her and warmed her while she was yet weak and babyish from sleep! Beyond her the white plains of beauty shone outside the window…. She sat up and smiled: "I'm awake," she said.

And Madame Boujan, having seen that her feet were set upon the threshold of day, went out of the door and closed it softly.

They held the lustre bowls cupped in their hands and sipped.

* * * * *

During lunch in the little villa, while they were all recounting their experiences, Madame Boujan came softly to Fanny's side and whispered:

"A soldier has brought you a note from Chantilly."

"Keep it for me in the kitchen," Fanny answered, under her breath, helping herself to potatoes.

"Will you come and cut wood for the bedroom fire?" said Stewart, when lunch was over. "I bought a hatchet in the village this morning."

"Come down by the river first," insisted Fanny, who had her note in her hand.

"Why? And it gets dark so soon!"

"I want to find a boat."

"What for?"

"To cross the river."

"To cross the river! Do you want to see what's on the other side?"

"Julien will be on the other side…. I have had a letter from him. I am to dine in Chantilly. He will send a car at seven to wait for me in the fields at the other side of the broken bridge, and trusts to me to find a boat. Come over the level crossing to the river."

They passed the station hut and came to a little landing stage near which a boat was tied.

"There's a boat," said Stewart. "Shall we ask at that hut?"

The wooden hut stood above their heads on a pedestal of stone; from its side the haunch of the stone bridge sprang away into the air, but stopped abruptly where it had been broken off. The hut, once perhaps a toll-house, was on a level with what had been the height of the bridge, and now it could be reached by stone steps which wound up to a small platform in front of the door. From within came men's voices singing.

"Look in here!"

A flickering light issued from a small window, and having climbed the steps they could see inside. Two boys, about sixteen, a soldier and an old man, sat round a table beneath a hanging lamp, and sang from scraps of paper which they held in their hands. Behind the old man a girl stood cleaning a cup with a cloth.

"They are practising something. Knock!"

But there was no need, for a dog chained in a barrel close to them set up a wild barking.

"Is he chained? Keep this side. The old man is coming."

The door opened. The voices ceased; the girl stood by the old man's side.

"Yes, it could be arranged. People still crossed that way; their boat was a sort of ferry and there was a charge.

"There might be a little fog to-night, but it didn't matter. Margot knows the way across blindfold—Margot would row the lady. She would be waiting with a lantern at five minutes to seven; and again at half-past nine. Not too late at all! But Margot would not wait on the other side, it was too cold. They would lend the lady a whistle, and she must blow on it from the far bank."

"There's romance!" said Fanny, as they came away.

"Not if you are caught."

"There's my magic luck!"

"How dare you ask like that? Even if you are not superstitious, even if you don't believe a word of it, why be so defiant—why not set the signs right!"

"Oh, my dear Stewart, I hardly care! And to the creature who doesn't care no suspicion clings. Haven't I an honest face? Would you think it was me, me, of all the Section, to cross the river to-night, in a little boat with a lantern, to creep out of the house, out of the village, to dine forbidden in Chantilly, with some one who enchants me! You wouldn't. Why, do you know, if I lived up in their house, under their eyes, I would go out just the same, to cross the river. I wouldn't climb by windows or invent a wild tale to soothe them, but open the door and shut the door, and be gone. And would anybody say: 'Where's Fanny?'"

"They might."

"They might. But they would answer their own question: 'Innocently sleeping. Innocently working. Innocently darning, reading, writing.' I don't suspect myself so why should any one else suspect me!"

Fanny broke off and laughed.

"Come along and cut wood!"

They moved off into the woods as people with not a care in the world, and coming upon a snow-covered stack of great logs which had been piled by some one else, began to steal one or two and drag them away into a deep woodland drive where they could cut them up without fear of being noticed.

They worked on for an hour, and then Stewart drew a packet of cake from her coat pocket, and sitting upon the logs they had their tea.

Soon Fanny, wringing her hands, cried:

"I'm blue again, stiff again, letting the cold in, letting the snow gnaw. Where's the hatchet?"

For a time she chopped and hacked, and Stewart, shepherding the splinters which flew into the snow, piled them—splinters, most precious of all—petit bois to set a fire alight; and the afternoon grew bluer, deeper. Stewart worked in a reverie—Fanny in a heat of expectation. One mused reposedly on life—the other warmly of the immediate hours before her.

"Now I'm going to fetch the car," said Stewart at last. "Will you stay here and go on cutting till I come? There are two more logs."

She walked away up the drive, and Fanny picked the hatchet out of the snow and started on the leathery, damp end of a fresh log. It would not split, the tapping marred the white silence, and yet again she let the hatchet fall and sat down on the log instead. It was nearly six—they had spent the whole afternoon splitting up the logs, and making a fine pile of short pieces for firewood; the forest was darkening rapidly, blue deepened above the trees to indigo, and black settled among the trunks. Only the snow sent up its everlasting shine. Her thoughts fell and rose. Now they were upon the ground busy with a multitude of small gleams and sparkles—now they were up and away through the forest tunnels to Chantilly. What would he say first? How look when he met her?

"Ah, I am a silly woman in a fever! Yet happy—for I see beauty in everything, in the world, upon strange faces, in nights and days. Upon what passes behind the glassy eyes" (she pressed her own) "depends sight, or no sight. There is a life within life, and only I" (she thought arrogantly, her peopled world bounded by her companions) "am living in it. We are afraid, we are ashamed, but when one dares talk of this strange ecstasy, other people nod their heads and say: 'Ah, yes, we know about that! They are in love.' And they smile. But what a convention—tradition—that smile!"

There was no sound in the forest at all—not the cry of a bird, not the rustle of snow falling from a branch—but there was something deeper and remoter than sound, the approach of night. There was a change on the face of the forest—an effective silence which was not blankness—a voiceless expression of attention as the Newcomer settled into his place. Fanny looked up and saw the labyrinth of trees in the very act of receiving a guest.

"Oh, what wretched earnest I am in," she thought, suddenly chilled. "And it can only have one end—parting." But she had a power to evade these moods. She could slip round them and say to herself: "I am old enough—I have learnt again and again—that there is only one joy—the Present; only one Perfection—the Present. If I look into the future it is lost."

She heard the returning car far up the forest drive, and in a moment saw the gleam of its two lamps as they rocked and swayed. It drew up, and Stewart put out the lamps, ever remembering that their logs were stolen. There was still light enough by which they could pack the car with wood. As they finished Stewart caught her arm: "Look, a fire!" she said, pointing into the forest. Through a gap in the trees they could see a red glow which burst up over the horizon.

"And look behind the trees—the whole sky is illumined—What a fire!" As they watched, the glare grew stronger and brighter, and seemed about to lift the very tongue of its flame over the horizon.

"It's the moon!" they cried together.

The cold moon it was who had come up red and angry from some Olympic quarrel and hung like a copper fire behind the forest branches. Up and up she sailed, but paling as she rose from red to orange, from orange to the yellow of hay; and at yellow she remained, when the last branch had dropped past her face of light, and she was drifting in the height of the sky.