CHAPTER III.

Hide and Seek.

THE last ringing note had been sounded by the band on the Pincio, and the men were gathering up their music and hurrying down from the stand; but Janet still sat knitting rapidly, and talking with an air of the deepest interest to the old Englishwoman. Marie, the little French girl with whom Paul had been playing, had gone home with her nurse; every one was going. How tiresome it was of Janet to sit there, so absorbed in her talk as to pay no attention to his very plain hints that he wanted to be moving! What stupid things grown-up people talked about! Who cared how many servants the Russian countess kept? Certainly Paul did not. A naughty idea occurred to him, and proved too delightful to be resisted. He would run away and hide. It would serve nurse right if she thought that he was lost.

Slipping behind Janet, and running across to the Moses Fountain, Paul was soon lost to sight amidst the shrubs. Looking about he found a snug hiding-place—a little nook beneath a rockery, screened by a full leafy bush. In the gathering gloom beneath the trees it was impossible that anyone could spy the tiny form ensconced there. Not many minutes had passed ere Paul heard his nurse's voice calling him. It was delightful to think how well he was hidden. He would stay where he was till Janet came quite close, and then catch hold of her gown as she passed.

"Paul! Paul! Come to me at once, Master Paul!" nurse called. "Oh yes, I know you are hiding; but it is too late now for games; we must go home at once."

Paul shook with laughing as he listened. It was such fun to think that nurse could not find him. He stretched out his right hand, ready to grab Janet's skirt as she passed, but she never came near enough for him to do that; the shrubs, growing thickly about his hiding-place, barred the way for a grown-up person. Her voice sounded further away; presently the cry of "Paul! Paul!" seemed to come from a distance; then he heard it no more.

Paul waited, feeling sure that Janet would presently return; but she did not come, and the waiting grew tedious. It is dull work hiding, if no one comes to find you. Besides, it seemed to be getting dark. Paul did not like the idea of being alone on the Pincio in the dark.

He came out of his hiding-place, scrambled through the bushes, and stood looking about him. It was not dark, but the light was failing, and he saw the moon looking down at him from the clear sky. No one was in sight. A feeling of loneliness and fear took possession of Paul's mind.

He began to cry aloud—"Janet! Janet! I'm here. Come to me quick. Janet! Janet!"

But it was now his turn to call in vain. He burst into tears, and ran forward with outstretched hands. Suddenly a sharp little bark fell on his ears, and Mademoiselle Grand's pug came bounding to meet him.

"Oh, Fritz, Fritz! I am glad to see you!" the child cried. "I'm here alone, Fritz, all alone!" And his tears flowed afresh.

Fritz did his best to comfort him. He stood on his hind legs and laid his front paws on the child's shoulders; he licked his cheeks and gave short joyous barks, as if he would say, "Never mind, it's all right now; I'm here, you know."

Then he gave a tug at the boy's tunic and bounded off, looking back, as though to bid him follow. Paul followed willingly.

The dog bounded across the deserted road and made for the furthest angle of the wall. This corner is separated from the path by wooden palings, which guard the spot whence there juts forth a fragment of the oldest Roman wall. At one point the fence had broken down. Fritz sprang through the gap, and Paul followed him.

The next moment the boy uttered a cry of fear, for, standing on the very verge of the wall, overlooking its sheer descent, and leaning forward at an angle that even the child saw to be most perilous, was Mademoiselle Grand. At the sound of the boy's cry, she started, and all but lost her balance.

But Paul seized her hand, and with tremulous haste pulled her back. "You must not stand so near the edge," he said; "it is very naughty. You might fall, and then you would be bwoken to bits, like Marie's doll when she dwopped it over the wall."

Mademoiselle Grand turned towards him a face from which every vestige of colour had fled. She was trembling from head to foot, and when she tried to laugh her voice broke, and she began to sob instead.

"Don't cwy," said Paul, forgetting his own distress in his desire to comfort her; "I daresay you did not know how naughty it was."

"Oh yes; I knew very well," she sobbed. "I knew that I was going to do a very wicked thing. Dear little Paul, I believe God must have sent you to stop me. If you had not come, I should certainly have thrown myself down."

[Illustration: STANDING ON THE VERGE OF THE WALL WAS MADEMOISELLE GRAND.]

"Then you would have been bwoken," said Paul, in the most matter-of-fact way, "your head and your neck, and I suppose your arms and legs too."

The lady shuddered.

"It's horrible to think of," she said; "but, after all, it would not have mattered about my body. No one would have cared."

"God would have cared," said Paul.

"God!" she repeated in a startled tone. "Does He care?"

"Of course," said Paul. "Janet says that it makes Him sad when we do naughty things. Haven't you any father and mother to be sowwhy too?"

"My mother died when I was younger than you, Paul," said Mademoiselle Grand in a low, sad tone. "My father—"

"Your father—" repeated Paul, as she paused.

Still, the young lady did not speak. She was gazing away into the distance, as if she saw something that Paul could not see. Looking up at her pale, sad face, outlined against the clear evening sky, the child was dimly aware that it was very beautiful. Suddenly she seemed to become conscious of his presence again. She turned, and seating herself on a low bank of earth, drew Paul towards her. As she put her arm about him, the child could feel how it trembled.

"My father, Paul," she said, "is a good man; but stern and hard. It is always the good people who find it most hard to forgive evil in others. He loved me in his way, and he did much for me; he was proud of me till—I was a bad daughter, Paul. I ran away from him. I know I have broken his heart. He will never forgive me."

"Oh yes, he will," said Paul, confidently. "If you go home and tell him that you are sorry, he will forgive you; fathers always do. There was the pwodigal son, you know. His father came to meet him with his arms stretched out wide. I've seen the picture of it."

"Oh, the prodigal son!" said Mademoiselle Grand. "That is in the Bible."

"Yes, that's why I know it is true," said Paul.

"Well, I'm a prodigal daughter, so it's a similar case," she said bitterly; "but I don't think I dare go home. Yet, what will become of me?" She broke off abruptly, and her tears gathered afresh.

"I should go home if I were you," said Paul. "Depend upon it, your father will come to meet you. And if he seemed angry, you could tell him you would be one of his servants."

"My father does not keep many servants," said Mademoiselle Grand, with a sad smile. "Ah! How sick I grew of my quiet Highland home, and now I weary to see it again, though I know the sight of it would break my heart! Would to God I had never left it! Well, Fritz, what now?"

For all the time she was speaking, Fritz was nestling close to her, licking her hands and cheek, and striving by every means that dog can employ to show his love for her.

"How fond of you Fritz is!" said Paul. "What would he have done if you had fallen off the wall?"

"He would have sprung after me," said Mademoiselle Grand. "He has too true a heart to live on, if I were dead. Dogs are more faithful than men."

"Poor dear Fritz," said Paul, fondling him. "I'm glad you did not fall. But now, please—" there was a sudden break in his voice—"you take me home? I'm lost, you know, and nurse is looking for me. And I am so dreadfully hungry."

Mademoiselle Grand rose quickly, and taking the little boy's hand led him homewards. Up to this moment she had been too absorbed in herself to wonder at his being there alone. At the gate they met Janet, looking like one distracted. She had been to the hotel, to see if Paul had found his way back alone. Great was her relief on seeing him with Mademoiselle Grand; but she gave but scant thanks to the young lady for her care of him.

"Good-bye," said Paul, as he shook hands with her, "you won't go back to the wall, will you?"

"I? Oh no!" said Mademoiselle Grand, with a nervous laugh. "See, they are closing the gate. Good-bye, my little friend; I shall not forget what you have said."

"What did you say to her?" asked Janet curiously, as they walked away. "And what did you mean about the wall?"

"I thought she might walk too near and fall over, you know," said Paul. "It was a pity you did not go on looking for me, Janet, I was in such a lovely hiding-place."

"It was very naughty of you to go away and hide, when it was time to go home," said his nurse; but she was too thankful to have found him to be hard upon him.

Meanwhile, Mademoiselle Grand had paused outside the gates of the Pincio, and stood beneath the ilexes, gazing across the house-tops to the dome of St. Peter's, looming dark against the grey sky. In all the wide city there was perhaps no more desolate and despairful creature than this young girl, so beautiful and so exquisitely dressed. She had bartered all that a woman holds most dear for what had proved a worthless exchange. She had sinned, and bitter was her repentance.

This evening she had meant to end her life, but God had stayed her by the hand of a little child, and by that child, it seemed to her, that He had spoken to her. She would go home, she who had sinned against her father and her God. It might be that there was forgiveness for her with both; but for that she dared not hope.