at Chasseur he saw one whom he
had known in many a scene of court splendor and Parisian pleasure. The
years had been many since Cecil and he had met, but not so many but that
the name brought memories of friendship with it, and moved him with a
strange emotion.

He turned with grave anxiety to Cigarette.

"You speak strangely. How came this in your hands?"

"Thus: the day that you gave me the Cross, I saw Mme. la Princesse
Corona. I hated her, and I went--no matter! From her I learned that he
whom we call Louis Victor was of her rank, was of old friendship with
her house, was exiled and nameless, but for some reason unknown to her.
She needed to see him; to bid him farewell, so she said. I took the
message for her; I sent him to her." Her voice grew husky and savage,
but she forced her words on with the reckless sacrifice of self that
moved her. "He went to her tent, alone, at night; that was, of course,
whence he came when Chateauroy met him. I doubt not the Black Hawk
had some foul thing to hint of his visit, and that blow was struck for
her--for her! Well; in the streets of Algiers I saw a man with a face
like his own, different, but the same race, look you. I spoke to him; I
taxed him. When he found that the one whom I spoke of was under sentence
of death, he grew mad; he cried out that he was his brother and had
murdered him--that it was for his sake that the cruelty of this
exile had been borne--that, if his brother perished, he would be his
destroyer. Then I bade him write down that paper, since these English
names were unknown to me, and I brought it hither to you that you might
see, under his hand and with your own eyes, that I have uttered the
truth. And now, is that man to be killed like a mad beast whom you fear?
Is that death the reward France will give for Zaraila?"

Her eyes were fixed with a fearful intensity of appeal upon the stern
face bent over her; her last arrow was sped; if this failed, all was
over. As he heard, he was visibly moved; he remembered the felon's shame
that in years gone by had fallen across the banished name of Bertie
Cecil; the history seemed clear as crystal to him, seen beneath the
light shed on it from other days.

His hand fell heavily on the gun-carriage.

"Mort de Dieu! it was his brother's sin, not his!"

There was a long silence; those present, who knew nothing of all that
was in his memory, felt instinctively that some dead weight of alien
guilt was lifted off a bl