al of what actually
transpired. But one's memory is apt to play strange and unaccountable
tricks, and mine is no exception. The best mental image I can recall
is distorted, all out of drawing, as the artists say; I can see only
Belle Fluette.

After the accusation fell from the foreman's lips, I quite suddenly
became aware of the fact that she was standing rigidly erect, one hand
strained to her bosom, the other clenched tightly against her cheek.
Every vestige of color had flown from her face, leaving it as white as
marble.

But her eyes! It is her eyes that still haunt me. They burned with a
light of despair so profound that no mere human note could even feebly
yield a hint of it; and behind the despair, plucking and tearing at her
heart-strings, lay a misery unutterable. She alone had remained
serenely confident of the outcome, and now, being the least prepared
for it, the shock to her high-strung susceptibilities was more keenly
poignant than human flesh could endure. She presented the appearance
of one stunned, of one beaten and buffeted to stupefaction, yet through
it all still sensible of an anguish that wrenched her very soul.

There was no outcry, no spoken word; but in a moment a tremor ran over
her slender form, her knees gave way, and with one last desperate
effort she tried to reach Maillot. Even as she turned to him, before a
move could be made to sustain her, she tottered and fell prone upon her
face. One extended hand clutched once at the young man's foot, then
relaxed and grew still. It was as if her last conscious thought had
been governed by a flitting impulse to seek the support of even so mean
an assurance of his presence.

In a flash the lover was kneeling at his sweetheart's side, pressing
her white face to his bosom in a wild embrace. He called to her
frantically, coaxed her with endearments, wholly oblivious of his
shocked audience. He assured her in choked, incoherent phrases that
all was well with him; but he spoke to deaf ears.

Dr. De Breen, direct and practical, brought him to his senses with a
sharp command.

Maillot reluctantly yielded Belle to Genevieve and the doctor. Not for
a moment did a thought of his own trouble enter his head, I am sure,
and he did not remove his tense look of anxiety from her face until Dr.
De Breen convincingly declared that she was only in a swoon.

"Best thing for her, just now," said he, crisply; "she can't think.
Furthermore, she needs a