.

"_Mignonne_!" he gasped hoarsely. "_Mignonne_!" And again "_Mignonne_!"

Her answering voice had a break in it--a sound of unshed tears.
"Bertie--dear! Bertie--dear!"

The door closed discreetly, and Holmes departed to his own premises. It
was no affair of his, he informed himself stolidly; but it was a rum go,
and he couldn't help wondering what the master would make of it.

"But why wasn't I told?" said Chris, yet hovering between tears and
laughter. "They--Bertie--they said you were an organ-grinder!"

He let her hands go, but his dark eyes still shone with the wonder and
the joy of the encounter.

"Ah!" he said. "And they told me--they told me--that you were--" He
stopped abruptly with the dazed expression of a man suddenly hit in a
vital place. All the light went out of his face. He became silent.

"Why--what is it?" said Chris.

He did not answer at once, and in the pause that ensued he resumed his
burden, he re-crossed the gulf, and the sands of Valpre were left very,
very far away.

In the pause also she saw him as he was--a man broken before his prime,
haggard and tired and old, with the fire of his genius quenched for ever
in the bitter waters of adversity.

With an effort he spoke. "It is nothing, _cherie_. You are the same. But
with me--all is changed."

"Changed, Bertie? But how?"

He looked at her. His eyes dwelt upon the vivid, happy face, but all the
spontaneous gladness had died out of his own; it held only an infinite
melancholy.

"He--Mr. Mordaunt--has not told you?"

"No one has told me anything," she said. "What is it, Bertie? Have things
gone wrong with you? Tell me! Was it--was it the gun?"

He bent his head.

"Oh, but I'm so sorry," she said. "Was it a failure, after all?"

She drew near to him. She laid a sympathetic hand upon his arm.

A sharp tremor went through him. He stooped very low and kissed it. "It
was--worse than that," he said, his voice choked, barely audible. "It
was--it was--dishonour."

"Dishonour!" She echoed the word, uncomprehending, unbelieving.

He remained bent over her hand. She could not see his face. "Have you
never heard," he said, "of ex-Lieutenant de Montville--the man whom all
France execrated three years ago as a traitor?"

"Yes," said Chris. "I've heard of him, of course. But"--doubtfully--"I
don't read the papers much. I didn't know what he was supposed to have
done. I only knew that everyone in England said he hadn't."

The Frenchman