tten, unrecognized, unclaimed,
finding the blind path to a father who, when she had been torn
from him, dared not seek for her, dared not whisper of her
existence except to Morny in the cloaked shadows of secret
places.

For good or ill Jack made up his mind; he had decided for himself
and for her. Her loveless, lonely childhood had been enough of
sorrow for one young life; she should have no further storm, no
more heartaches, nothing but peace and love and the strong arm of
a man to shield her. Let her remember the only father she had
ever known--let her remember him with faithful love and sorrow
as she would. For the wrong he had done, let him account to
another tribunal; her, the echo of that crime and hate and
passion must never reach.

Why should he, the man who loved her, bring to her this heritage
of ruin? Why should he tear the veil from her trusting eyes and
show her a land bought with blood and broken oaths, sold in blood
and infamy? Why should he show her this, and say, "This is the
work of your imperial family! There is your father!--some call
him the Assassin of December! There is your mother!--read the
pages of an Eastern diary! There, too, is your brother, a sick
child of fifteen, baptized at Saarbrueck, endowed at Sedan?"

It was enough that France lay prostrate, that the wounded
screamed from the blood-wet fields, that the quiet dead lay under
the pall of smoke from the nation's funeral pyre. It was enough
that the parents suffer, that the son drag out an existence among
indifferent or hostile people in an alien land. The daughter
should never know, never weep when they wept, never pray when
they prayed. This was retribution--not his, he only watched in
silence the working of divine justice.

He tore the paper into fragments and ground them under his heel
deep into the soft forest mould.

Lorraine slept.

He stood a long while in silence looking down at her. She was
breathing quietly, regularly; her long, curling lashes rested on
curved cheeks, delicate as an infant's.

Half fearfully he stooped to arouse her. A footfall sounded on
the dead leaves behind him, and a franc-tireur touched him on the
shoulder.

XXVII

CA IRA!

"What do you want?" asked Jack, in a voice that vibrated
unpleasantly. There was a dangerous light in his eyes; his lips
grew thinner and whiter. One by one a dozen franc-tireurs stepped
from behind the trees on every side, rifles shimmering in the
subdued af