a terrible
dream shook her. She trembled. Some old quiver of the dead days swept
through her. How distant and how--bad it all was! For one instant the
old thrill repeated itself and then was gone--for ever.

"What is it you wish here?" she asked.

"Will you not shut the door?" he responded, for her fingers were on the
handle. "I cannot speak with the night looking in. Won't you ask me to
your sitting-room? I'm not a robber or a rogue."

Slowly she closed the door. Then she turned, and, in the dim light, she
said:

"But you are both a robber and a rogue."

He did not answer until they had entered the sittin-groom.

"I gave you that which is out against me now. Is he not brilliant,
capable and courageous?"

There was in her face a stern duty.

"It was Fate, monsieur. When he and I went to your political meeting at
Charlemont it had no purpose. No blush came to his cheek, because he
did not know who his father is. No one in the world knows--no one except
myself, that must suffer to the end. Your speech roused in him the
native public sense, the ancient fire of the people from whom he did not
know he came. His origin has been his bane from the start. He did not
know why the man he thought his father seemed almost a stranger to him.
He did not understand, and so they fell apart. Yet John Grier would have
given more than he had to win the boy to himself. Do you ever think what
the boy must have suffered? He does not know. Only you and I know!" She
paused.

He thrust out a hand as though to stay her speech, but she went on again

"Go away from me. You have spoiled my life; you have spoiled my boy's
life, and now he fights you. I give him no help save in one direction.
I give to him something his reputed father withheld from him. Don't you
think it a strange thing"--her voice was thick with feeling--"that he
never could bear to take money from John Grier, and that, even as a
child, gifts seemed to trouble him. I think he wanted to give back again
all that John Grier had ever paid out to him or for him; and now, at
last, he fights the man who gave him birth! I wanted to tell John Grier
all, but I did not because I knew it would spoil his life and my boy's
life. It was nothing to me whether I lived or died. But I could not bear
Carnac should know. He was too noble to have his life spoiled."

Barode Barouche drew himself together. Here was a deep, significant
problem, a situation that needed more expert handling than