wild with rage he could almost have killed her as she stood
there, one hand stretched out to protect the child, the other pointing
to the door.

He seized his hat and cloak and laid his hand upon the latch, then
suddenly turned to her. A dark project came to him. He himself could not
prevail with her; but he would reach her yet, through the child. If the
child were in his hands, she would come to him.

"Remember, I will have the child," he said, his face black with evil
purpose.

She did not deign reply, but stood fearless and still, as, throwing open
the door, he rushed out into the night. She listened until she heard his
horse's hoofs upon the rocky upland. Then she went to the door, locked
it, and barred it. Turning, she ran with a cry as of hungry love to the
little bed. Crushing the child to her bosom, she buried her face in his
brown curls.

"My son, my own, own son!" she said.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

If at times it would seem that Nature's disposition of the events of a
life or a series of lives is illogical, at others she would seem to
play them with an irresistible logic--loosing them, as it were, in
a trackless forest of experience, and in some dramatic hour, by an
inevitable attraction, drawing them back again to a destiny fulfilled.
In this latter way did she seem to lay her hand upon the lives of Philip
d'Avranche and Guida Landresse.

At the time that Elie Mattingley, in Jersey, was awaiting hanging on
the Mont es Pendus, and writing his letter to Carterette concerning
the stolen book of church records, in a town of Brittany the Reverend
Lorenzo Dow lay dying. The army of the Vendee, under Detricand Comte de
Tournay, had made a last dash at a small town held by a section of the
Republican army, and captured it. On the prisons being opened, Detricand
had discovered in a vile dungeon the sometime curate of St. Michael's
Church in Jersey. When they entered on him, wasted and ragged he lay
asleep on his bed of rotten straw, his fingers between the leaves of a
book of meditations. Captured five years before and forgotten alike
by the English and French Governments, he had apathetically pined and
starved to these last days of his life.

Recognising him, Detricand carried him in his strong arms to his own
tent. For many hours the helpless man lay insensible, but at last the
flickering spirit struggled back to light for a little space. When first
conscious of his surroundings, the poor captive felt trem