and severe look of past grandeur which usually hung
upon every corner of the old chateau.

Clyffurde went up to the tall hearth. He rested his hand on the ledge of
the mantel and leaning his forehead against it he stared moodily into
the fire.

Thoughts of all that he had learned in the past few hours, of the new
chapter in the book of the destinies of France, begun a few days ago in
the bay of Jouan, crowded in upon his mind. What difference would the
unfolding of that new chapter make to the destinies of the Comte de
Cambray and of Crystal? What had Fate in store for the bold adventurer
who was marching across France with a handful of men to reconquer a
throne and remake an empire? what had she in store for the stiff-necked
aristocrat of the old regime who still believed that God himself had
made special laws for the benefit of one class of humanity, and that He
had even created them differently to the rest of mankind?

And what had Fate in store for the beautiful, delicate girl whose future
had been so arbitrarily settled by two men--father and lover--one the
buyer, the other the seller of her exquisite person, the shrine of her
pure and idealistic soul--and bargained for by father and lover as the
price of so many acres of land--a farm--a chateau--an ancestral estate?

Father and lover were sitting together even now discussing values--the
purchase price--"You give me back my lands, I will give you my
daughter!" Blood money! soul money! Clyffurde called it as he ground his
teeth together in impotent rage.

What folly it was to care! what folly to have allowed the tendrils of
his over-sensitive heart to twine themselves round this beautiful girl,
who was as far removed from his destiny as were the ambitions of his
boyhood, the hopes, the dreams which the hard circumstances of fate had
forced him to bury beneath the grave-mound of rigid and unswerving duty.

But what a dream it had been, this love for Crystal de Cambray! It had
filled his entire soul from the moment when first he saw her--down in
the garden under an avenue of ilex trees which cast their mysterious
shadows over her; her father had called to her and she had come across
to where he--Clyffurde--stood silently watching this approaching vision
of loveliness which never would vanish from his mental gaze again.

Even at that supreme moment, when her blue eyes, her sweet smile, the
exquisite grace of her took possession of his soul, even then he knew
alr