Monsieur Lomaque, the land-steward, and Monsieur Trudaine, the brother, both glanced searchingly at the bride, as the words passed the bridegroom’s lips.  She seemed to be frightened and astonished, rather than irritated or hurt.  A curious smile puckered up Lomaque’s lean face, as he looked demurely down on the ground, and began drilling a fresh hole in the turf with the sharp point of his cane.  Trudaine turned aside quickly, and, sighing, walked away a few paces; then came back, and seemed about to speak, but Danville interrupted him.

“Pardon me, Rose,” he said; “I am so jealous of even the appearance of any want of attention toward you, that I was nearly allowing myself to be irritated about nothing.”

He kissed her hand very gracefully and tenderly as he made his excuse; but there was a latent expression in his eye which was at variance with the apparent spirit of his action.  It was noticed by nobody but observant and submissive Monsieur Lomaque, who smiled to himself again, and drilled harder than ever at his hole in the grass.

“I think Monsieur Trudaine was about to speak,” said Madame Danville.  “Perhaps he will have no objection to let us hear what he was going to say.”

“None, madame,” replied Trudaine, politely.  “I was about to take upon myself the blame of Rose’s want of respect for believers in omens, by confessing that I have always encouraged her to laugh at superstitions of every kind.”

“You a ridiculer of superstitions?” said Danville, turning quickly on him.  “You, who have built a laboratory; you, who are an amateur professor of the occult arts of chemistry—­a seeker after the Elixir of Life.  On my word of honor, you astonish me!”

There was an ironical politeness in his voice, look, and manner as he said this, which his mother and his land-steward, Monsieur Lomaque, evidently knew how to interpret.  The first touched his arm again and whispered, “Be careful!” the second suddenly grew serious, and left off drilling his hole in the grass.  Rose neither heard the warning of Madame Danville, nor noticed the alteration in Lomaque.  She was looking round at her brother, and was waiting with a bright, affectionate smile to hear his answer.  He nodded, as if to reassure her, before he spoke again to Danville.

“You have rather romantic ideas about experiments in chemistry,” he said, quietly.  “Mine have so little connection with what you call the occult arts that all the world might see them, if all the world thought it worth while.  The only Elixirs of Life that I know of are a quiet heart and a contented mind.  Both those I found, years and years ago, when Rose and I first came to live together in the house yonder.”

He spoke with a quiet sadness in his voice, which meant far more to his sister than the simple words he uttered.  Her eyes filled with tears; she turned for a moment from her lover, and took her brother’s hand.  “Don’t talk, Louis, as if you thought you were going to lose your sister, because—­” Her lips began to tremble, and she stopped suddenly.