eaped into his mind and struck at his
heart. Could it be that she had over-acted it all? Could it be that
she had brushed aside his story because she really did not believe it
and could not listen to it without betraying her doubt? And had she
blinded him with her pity? Had she acted all--!

He threw himself down on his cot and writhed in blind despair. Might
not even his mother have deceived him! Might not she too have been
acting! What did he care now for name or liberty, or life itself! The
girl had mocked him with what he thought was love, when it was
only--!

But his good sense brought him back and set him on his feet. Ruth was
no actress. And if she had been the greatest actress the world had
ever seen she could not have acted that flooding love light into her
eyes.

He threw back his head, laughing softly, and began to pace his cell
rapidly. There was some other explanation. Either she had deliberately
put his story aside in order to keep the whole of their little time
together entirely to themselves, or Ruth knew something that made his
story unimportant.

She had been through the fire herself. Both she and the Bishop must
have gone straight through it from their home in its front line to the
rear of it at French Village. How, no one could tell. Jeffrey had
heard wild tales of the exploit-- The French people had made many
wonders of the coming of these two to them in the hour of their
deliverance, the one the Bishop of their souls, the other the young
girl just baptised by Holy Church and but little differing from the
angels.

Who could tell, thought Jeffrey, what the fire might have revealed to
one or both of these two as they went through it. Perhaps there were
other men who had not been accounted for. Then he remembered Rafe
Gadbeau. He had been with Rogers. He had once waylaid Jeffrey at
Rogers' command. Might it not be that the bullet which killed Rogers
was intended for Jeffrey himself! He must have been almost in the line
of that bullet, for Rogers had been facing him squarely and the bullet
had struck Rogers fairly in the back of the head.

Or again, people had said that Rogers had possessed some sort of
mysterious hold over Rafe Gadbeau, and that Gadbeau did his bidding
unwillingly, under a pressure of fear. What if Gadbeau there under
the excitement of the fire, and certain that another man would be
charged with the killing, had decided that here was the time and place
to rid himself of the ma