smile that warmed Chris's desolate heart.
Not till long afterwards did she know that this man had crossed the
Channel only that day, and that he proposed to re-cross it on the morrow
because of the trouble in a child's eyes that had moved him to
compassion.

They spent the next half-hour in an engrossing discussion as to the best
means to be adopted for Cinders' safe transit, and when Chris went to bed
at last she was so full of the scheme that she forgot after all to cry
herself to sleep over the thought of her _preux chevalier_ drawing his
sand-pictures in solitude.

She dreamed instead that he and the Englishman with the level, grey eyes
were fighting a duel that lasted interminably, neither giving ground,
till suddenly Bertrand plunged his sword into the earth and abruptly
walked away.

She tried to follow him, but could not, for something held her back. And
so presently he passed out of her sight, and turning, she found that the
Englishman had gone also, and she was alone.

Then she awoke, and knew it was a dream.

PART I

CHAPTER I

THE PRECIPICE

The angry yelling of a French mob rose outside the court--a low, ominous
roar, pierced here and there with individual execrations, and the
prisoner turned his head and listened. There was a suspicion of contempt
on his face, drawn though it was. What did they care for justice? It was
only the instinct to hunt the persecuted that urged them. Were he proved
innocent ten times over, they would hardly be convinced or cease from
their reviling.

But he knew that no proof of innocence would be forthcoming. He was
hedged around too completely by adverse circumstances for that.
Everything pointed to his guilt, and only he himself and one other knew
him to be the victim of a deliberate plot devised to compass his
destruction. He was too hopelessly enmeshed to extricate himself, and the
other--the only man in the world who could establish his innocence--was
the man who had set the snare.

Bertrand de Montville, gunner and genius, had faced this fact until he
was in a measure used to it. There was to be no escape for him. He, who
had dared to scale the heights of Olympus and had diced with the gods,
was to be hurled into the mire to rise therefrom no more for ever. He had
climbed so high; almost his feet had reached the summit. He had completed
his invention, and it had surpassed even his most sanguine hopes of
success. At four-and-twenty he had been ac