the reach of any lenient influence now that justice had failed
him. They had pushed him over the edge of the precipice--this man who had
dared to climb so high; and in the hissings and groanings of the crowd he
heard the death-knell of his honour.

In silence he went down into the abyss. In silence he passed out of
Trevor Mordaunt's life. Only as he went, for one strange second, as
though drawn by some magnetic force, his eyes, dark and still, met those
of the Englishman, with his level, unfaltering scrutiny. No word or
outward sign passed between them. They were utter strangers; it was
unlikely that they would ever meet again. Only for that one second
something that was in the nature of a message went from one man's soul to
the other's. For that instant they were in communion, subtle but
curiously distinct.

And Bertrand de Montville went to his martyrdom with the knowledge that
one man--an Englishman--believed in him, while Trevor Mordaunt was aware
that he knew it, and was glad.

For he had studied human nature long enough to realize that even a
stranger's faith may make a supreme difference in the hour of a man's
most pressing need.

CHAPTER II

THE CONQUEST

It was a sunny morning in the end of June, and Chris was doing her hair
in curls, for she was expecting a visitor. It took a very long time to
do, for there was so much of it; and she looked very worried over the
process. She would have liked to have borrowed Aunt Philippa's maid, but
this was a prohibited luxury except on very exceptional occasions. And
Hilda--dear, gentle Cousin Hilda--was away in Devon with her _fiance's_
people. So Chris had to wrestle with her difficulties in solitude.

It was the middle of her first season, and, with a few reservations, she
was enjoying it immensely. The reservations were all directly or
indirectly connected with Aunt Philippa, for whom Chris's feeling was
that of an adventurous schoolboy for a somewhat severe headmaster. She
was not exactly afraid of her, but she was instinctively wary in her
presence. She knew quite well that Aunt Philippa had given her this
season as her one and only chance in life, and had done it, moreover,
more than half against her will, impelled thereto by the urgent
representations of her son and daughter, who looked upon their merry
little cousin as their joint _protegee_. She ought, doubtless, to have
come out the previous year, but her aunt's ill-health had precluded this,
and