an encounter. But woe
unto every man at Bellecour if he should fail me. Citoyenne, you know my
mind."

But she overlooked the note of dismissal in his voice.

"You speak of a debt that you must discharge," said she, with no whit
less heat than he had exhibited. "You refer to the debt of vengeance
which you look to discharge by murdering that boy, my brother. But do
you not owe me a debt also?"

"You?" he questioned. "My faith! Unless it be a debt of scorn, I know of
none."

"Aye," she returned wistfully, "you are like the rest. You have a long
memory for injuries, but a short one for benefits. Had it not been for
me, Monsieur, you would not be here now to demand this that you call
satisfaction. Have you forgotten how I--"

"No," he broke in. "I well remember how you sought to stay them when
they were flogging me in the yard there. But you came too late. You
might have come before, for from the balcony above you had been watching
my torture. But you waited overlong. I was cast out for dead.".

She flashed him a searching glance, as though she sought to read his
thoughts, and to ascertain whether he indeed believed what he was
saying.

"Cast out for dead?" she echoed. "And by whose contrivance? By mine,
M. la Boulaye. When they were cutting you down they discovered that you
were not dead, and but that I bribed the men to keep it secret and carry
you to Duhamel's house, they had certainly informed my father and you
would have been finished off."

His eyes opened wide now, and into them there came a troubled look--the
look of one who is endeavouring to grasp an elusive recollection.

"Ma foi," he muttered. "It seems to come to me as if I had heard
something of the sort in a dream. It was--" He paused, and his brows
were knit a moment. Then he looked up suddenly, and gradually his face
cleared. "Why, yes--I have it!" he exclaimed. "It was in Duhamel's
house. While I was lying half unconscious on the couch I heard one of
the men telling Duhamel that you had paid them to carry me there and to
keep a secret."

"And you had forgotten that?" she asked, with the faintest note of
contempt.

"Not forgotten," he answered, "for it was never really there to be
remembered. That I had heard such words had more than once occurred to
me, but I have always looked upon it as the recollection of something
that I had dreamt. I had never looked upon it as a thing that had had a
real happening."

"How, then, did you explain your