strong voice went on; and in the old eyes turned
moonwards one might have fancied one could read a certain pathos of
abnegation, or approaching self-sacrifice; "but it will, and shortly, for
I prophesy. It was no idle cruelty of mine that first suggested this
condition, but a natural reluctance to sign myself back to utter
loneliness."

Plancine cried, "Papa! papa!" and sprang into his arms.

"A little patience," said De Jussac, pressing his moustache to the round
head, "and you will honour this weary prophet, I think. I was up on the
cliff to-day. The great crack is ever widening. A bowling wind, a loud
thunderstorm, and that apron of the hill will tear from its bondage and
sink sweltering down the slopes."

In the moment of speaking a tremor seized all his limbs, his eyes glared
maniacal, his outstretched arm pointed seawards.

"The guillotine!" he shrieked, "the guillotine!"

In the offing of the bay was a vessel making for the unseen harbour
below. It stood up black against the moonlight, its sails and yards
presenting some fantastic resemblance to that engine of blood.

George stepped back and hung his head embarrassed. He had more than once
been witness of a like seizure. It was the guillotine fright--the fright
that had smitten the boy of fourteen, and had pursued the man ever since
with periodic attacks of illusion. Anything--a branch, a door-post, a
window, would suggest the hateful form during those periods--happily
brief--when the poor mind was temporarily unhinged. No doubt, in earlier
years, the fits had occurred frequently. Now they were rare, and
generally, it seemed, attributable to some strong excitement or emotion.

Plancine knew how to act. She put her hand over the frantic eyes, and led
the old man stumbling up the garden path. She was going to sing to him
from the little sweet folk-ballads of the old gay France before the
trouble came--

_"The king would wed his daughter
Over the English sea;
But never across the water
Shall a husband come to me."_

Love floated on the freshet of her voice straight into the heart of the
young man who stood without.

II

Perhaps at first it had not been the least of the bitterness in M. De
Jussac's cup of calamity that his mere pride of name must adjust itself
to its altered conditions. That the Vicomte De Jussac should have been
expatriated because he declined when called upon to contribute his
heart's blood to the red conduit in the Faub