derstand that it's at fixed hours
and not alone. Somebody will always be with you, and old Michel will be
on hand to shoot you down if you try to run for it or if you try to
communicate with Arthur Benham. Is that understood?"

"Quite," said Ste. Marie, gayly. "Quite understood and agreed to. And
many thanks for your courtesy. I sha'n't forget it. We differ rather
widely on some rather important subjects, you and I, but I must confess
that you're very generous, and I thank you. The old Michel has my full
permission to shoot at me if he sees me trying to fly over a
fifteen-foot wall."

"He'll shoot without asking your permission," said the Irishman, grimly,
"if you try that on, but I don't think you'll be apt to try it for the
present--not with a crippled leg." He pulled out his watch and looked at
it. "Nine o'clock," said he. "If you care to begin to-day you can go out
at eleven for an hour. I'll see that old Michel is ready at that time."

"Eleven will suit me perfectly," said Ste. Marie. "You're very good.
Thanks once more!" The Irishman did not seem to hear. He replaced the
watch in his pocket and turned away in silence. But before he left the
room he stood a moment beside one of the windows, staring out into the
morning sunshine, and the other man could see that his face had once
more settled into the still and melancholic gloom which was
characteristic of it. Ste. Marie watched, and for the first time the man
began to interest him as a human being. He had thought of O'Hara before
merely as a rather shady adventurer of a not very rare type, but he
looked at the adventurer's face now and he saw that it was the face of a
man of unspeakable sorrows. When O'Hara looked at one, one saw only a
pair of singularly keen and hard blue eyes set under a bony brow. When
those eyes were turned away, the man's attention relaxed, the face
became a battle-ground furrowed and scarred with wrecked pride and with
bitterness and with shame and with agony. Most soldiers of fortune have
faces like that, for the world has used them very ill, and they have
lost one precious thing after another until all are gone, and they have
tasted everything that there is in life, and the flavor which remains is
a very bitter flavor--dry, like ashes.

It came to Ste. Marie, as he lay watching this man, that the story of
the man's life, if he could be made to tell it, would doubtless be one
of the most interesting stories in the world, as must be the t