bedside of that brutally murdered childhood
did infinite honour to her humanity. That vigil must have been the more
trying because I could see very well that at no time did she think the
victim particularly charming or sympathetic. It was a manifestation of
pure compassion, of compassion in itself, so to speak, not many women
would have been capable of displaying with that unflinching steadiness.
The shivering fit over, the girl's next words in an outburst of sobs
were, "Oh! Mrs Fyne, am I really such a horrid thing as she has made
me out to be?"

"No, no!" protested Mrs Fyne. "It is your former governess who is
horrid and odious. She is a vile woman. I cannot tell you that she was
mad but I think she must have been beside herself with rage and full of
evil thoughts. You must try not to think of these abominations, my dear
child."

They were not fit for anyone to think of much, Mrs Fyne commented to me
in a curt positive tone. All that had been very trying. The girl was
like a creature struggling under a net.

"But how can I forget? she called my father a cheat and a swindler! Do
tell me Mrs Fyne that it isn't true. It can't be true. How can it be
true?"

She sat up in bed with a sudden wild motion as if to jump out and flee
away from the sound of the words which had just passed her own lips.
Mrs Fyne restrained her, soothed her, induced her at last to lay her
head on her pillow again, assuring her all the time that nothing this
woman had had the cruelty to say deserved to be taken to heart. The
girl, exhausted, cried quietly for a time. It may be she had noticed
something evasive in Mrs Fyne's assurances. After a while, without
stirring, she whispered brokenly:

"That awful woman told me that all the world would call papa these awful
names. Is it possible? Is it possible?"

Mrs Fyne kept silent.

"Do say something to me, Mrs Fyne," the daughter of de Barral insisted
in the same feeble whisper.

Again Mrs Fyne assured me that it had been very trying. Terribly
trying. "Yes, thanks, I will." She leaned back in the chair with
folded arms while I poured another cup of tea for her, and Fyne went out
to pacify the dog which, tied up under the porch, had become suddenly
very indignant at somebody having the audacity to walk along the lane.
Mrs Fyne stirred her tea for a long time, drank a little, put the cup
down and said with that air of accepting all the consequences:

"Silence would have bee