t the will of another, but might
be brought into play by the tension of anxiety evoked by a great strain
upon the boy's own nervous system? Gaston did not phrase the question
thus, but he well knew the devotion with which Roger regarded Raymond,
and it seemed quite possible to him that in this crisis of his life, his
body weakened by wounds and fatigue, his mind strained by grief and
anxiety as to the fate of him he loved more than life, his spirit had
suddenly taken that ascendency over his body which of old it had
possessed, and that he was really and truly following in that strange
trance-like condition every movement of the party of which Raymond was
the centre.

At any rate, whether he were right or not in this surmise, Gaston
resolved that he would not lose a word of these almost ceaseless
utterings, and dismissing his men to get what rest they could, he sat
beside Roger, and listened with attention to every word he spoke.

Roger lay with his eyes wide open in the same fixed and glassy stare. He
spoke of a halt made at a wayside inn, of the rousing up with the
earliest stroke of dawn of the keeper of this place, of the inside of
the bare room, and the hasty refreshment set before the impatient
travellers.

"He sits down, they both sit down, and then he laughs -- ah, where have
I heard that laugh before?" and a look of strange terror sweeps over the
youth's face. "'I may now remove my visor -- my vow is fulfilled! My
enemy is in my hands. My Lord of Navailles, I drink this cup to your
good health and the success of our enterprise. We have the victim in our
own hands. We can wring from him every concession we desire before we
offer him for ransom.'"

Gaston gave a great start. What did this mean? Well indeed he remembered
the Sieur de Navailles, the hereditary foe of the De Brocas. Was it,
could it be possible, that he was concerned in this capture? Had their
two foes joined together to strive to win all at one blow? He must
strive to find this out. Could it be possible that Roger really saw and
heard all these things? or was it but the fantasy of delirium? Raymond
might have spoken to him of the Lord of Navailles as a foe, and in his
dreams he might be mixing one thought with the other.

Suddenly Roger uttered a sharp cry and pressed his hands before his
eyes. "It is he! it is he!" he cried, with a gasping utterance. "He has
removed the mask from his face. It is he -- Peter Sanghurst -- and he is
smiling -- t