th would have taken me back there. I had grown old in one night. I
had lost my strength, my cunning, my heart. I stayed on with the old man
awhile, and as he fell sick and died when the next snow fell upon the
ground, Master Bernard de Brocas appointed me as woodman in his stead,
and here I have remained ever since. I know not how the time has sped. I
have no heart or hope in life. My child is gone -- possessed by fiends
who have him in their clutches, so that I may never win him back to me.
I hate my life, yet fear to die; for then I might see him the sport of
devils, and be, as before, powerless to succour him. I have long ceased
to be shriven for my sins. What good to me is forgiveness, if my child
will be doomed to hellfire for evermore? No hope in this world, no hope
after death. Woe is me that ever I was born! Woe is me! woe is me!"

The energy which had supported the old man as he told his tale now
appeared suddenly to desert him. With a low moan he sank upon the ground
and buried his face in his hands, whilst the boys stood and gazed at
him, and then at one another, their faces full of interest and sympathy,
their hearts burning with indignation against the wicked foe of their
own race, who seemed to bring misery and wrong wherever he moved.

"And thou hast never seen thy son again?" asked Raymond softly. "Is he
yet alive, knowest thou?"

"I have never seen him again: they say that he still lives. But what is
life to one who is sold and bound over, body and soul, to the powers of
darkness?"

Then the old man buried his face once more in his hands, and seemed to
forget even the presence of the boys; and Gaston and Raymond stole
silently away, with many backward glances at the bowed and stricken
figure, unable to find any words either to help or comfort him.

CHAPTER IX. JOAN VAVASOUR.

It was with the greatest interest that John de Brocas listened to the
story brought home by the twin brothers after their visit to the
woodman's hut. Such a story of oppression, cruelty, and wrong truly
stirred him to the very soul; and moreover, as the brothers spoke of
Basildene, they told him also (under the promise of secrecy) of their
own connection with that place, of their kinship with himself, and of
the wrongs they had suffered at the hand of the Sanghursts, father and
son; and all this aroused in the mind of John an intense desire to see
wrong made right, and retribution brought upon the heads of those who