And she felt as if she had almost wronged the sanctity of the little study which had formerly belonged to the Sieur Amadis by allowing such pictures to enter it.  Of course she knew that dancers and actors, both male and female, existed,—­a whole troupe of them came every year to the small theatre of the country town which, by breaking out into an eruption of new slate-roofed houses among the few remaining picturesque gables and tiles of an earlier period, boasted of its “advancement” some eight or ten miles away; but her “father,” as she had thought him, had an insurmountable objection to what he termed “gadding abroad,” and would not allow her to be seen even at the annual fair in the town, much less at the theatre.  Moreover, it happened once that a girl in the village had run away with a strolling player and had gone on the stage,—­ an incident which had caused a great sensation in the tiny wood-encircled hamlet, and had brought all the old women of the place out to their doorsteps to croak and chatter, and prognosticate terrible things in the future for the eloping damsel.  Innocent alone had ventured to defend her.

“If she loved the man she was right to go with him,” she said.

“Oh, don’t talk to me about love!” retorted Priscilla, shaking her head—­“That’s fancy rubbish!  You know naught about it, dearie!  On the stage indeed!  Poor little hussy!  She’ll be on the street in a year or two, God help her!”

“What is that?” asked Innocent.  “Is it to be a beggar?”

Priscilla made no reply beyond her usual sniff, which expressed volumes.

“If she has found someone who really cares for her, she will never want,” Innocent went on, gently.  “No man could be so cruel as to take away a girl from her home for his own pleasure and then leave her alone in the world.  It would be impossible!  You must not think such hard things, Priscilla!”

And, smiling, she had gone her way,—­while Priscilla, shaking her head again, had looked after her, dimly wondering how long she would keep her faith in men.

On this still moonlight night, when the sadness of her soul seemed heavier than she could bear, her mind suddenly reverted to this episode.  She thought of the girl who had run away; and remembered that no one in the village had ever seen or heard of her again, not even her patient hard-working parents to whom she had been a pride and joy.

“Now she had a real father and mother!” she mused, wistfully—­ “They loved her and would have done anything for her—­yet she ran away from them with a stranger!  I could never have done that!  But I have no father and no mother—­no one but Dad!—­ah!—­how I have loved Dad!—­and yet I don’t belong to him—­and when he is dead—­”

Here an overpowering sense of calamity swept over her, and dropping on her knees by the open window she laid her head on her folded arms and wept bitterly.

A voice called her in subdued accents once or twice, “Innocent!  Innocent!”—­but she did not hear.