d face was pale as ivory, the mouth had
a look of deep sadness, and the step was slow; but the eye was clear
and steady, and her hair, brushed under the black crape of the bonnet as
smoothly as its nature would admit, gave to the broad brow a setting of
rare attraction and sombre nobility. It was not a face that knew inward
shame, but it carried a look that showed knowledge of life's cruelties
and a bitter sensitiveness to pain. Above all else it was fearless, and
it had no touch of the consciousness or the consequences of sin; it was
purity itself.

It alone should have proclaimed abroad her innocence, though she said no
word in testimony. To most people, however, her dauntless sincerity only
added to her crime and to the scandalous mystery. Yet her manner awed
some, while her silence held most back. The few who came to offer
sympathy, with curiousness in their eyes and as much inhumanity as pity
in their hearts, were turned back gently but firmly, more than once with
proud resentment.

So it chanced that soon only Maitresse Aimable came--she who asked no
questions, desired no secrets--and Dormy Jamais.

Dormy had of late haunted the precincts of the Place du Vier Prison, and
was the only person besides Maitresse Aimable whom Guida welcomed.
His tireless feet went clac-clac past her doorway, or halted by it, or
entered in when it pleased him. He was more a watch-dog than Biribi; he
fetched and carried; he was silent and sleepless--always sleepless.
It was as if some past misfortune had opened his eyes to the awful
bitterness of life, and they had never closed again.

The Chevalier had not been with her, for on the afternoon of the very
day her grandfather died, he had gone a secret voyage to St. Malo, to
meet the old solicitor of his family. He knew nothing of his friend's
death or of Guida's trouble. As for Carterette, Guida would not let her
come--for her own sake.

Nor did Maitre Ranulph visit her after the funeral of the Sieur de
Mauprat. The horror of the thing had struck him dumb, and his mind
was one confused mass of conflicting thoughts. There--there were the
terrifying facts before him; yet, with an obstinacy peculiar to him, he
still went on believing in her goodness and in her truth. Of the man who
had injured her he had no doubt, and his course was clear, in the hour
when he and Philip d'Avranche should meet. Meanwhile, from a spirit
of delicacy, avoiding the Place du Vier Prison, he visited Maitresse