ded her to sit for a picture. He had treated her courteously
at first. Her father was taken ill suddenly, and died. She was alone
for a few days afterwards. Ian Belward came to her. Of that miserable,
heart-rending, cruel time,--the life-sorrow of a defenceless
girl,--Gaston heard with a hard sort of coldness. The promised marriage
was a matter for the man's mirth a week later. They came across three
young artists from Paris--Bagshot, Fancourt, and another--who camped one
night beside them. It was then she fully realised the deep shame of her
position. The next night she ran away and joined a travelling menagerie.
The rest he knew. When she had ended there was silence for a time,
broken only by one quick gasping sob from Gaston. The girl sat still as
death, her eyes on him intently.

"Poor Andree! Poor girl!" he said at last. She sighed pitifully.

"What shall we do?" she asked. He scarcely spoke above a whisper:

"There must be time to think. I will go to London."

"You will come back?"

"Yes--in five days, if I live."

"I believe you," she said quietly. "You never lied to me. When you
return we will know what to do." Her manner was strangely quiet. "A
little trading schooner goes from Douarnenez to England to-morrow
morning," she went on. "There is a notice of it in the market-place.
That would save the journey to Paris.'"

"Yes, that will do very well. I will start for Douarnenez at once."

"Will Jacques go too?"

"No."

An hour later he passed Delia and her father on the road to Douarnenez.
He did not recognise them, but Delia, seeing him, shrank away in a
corner of the carriage, trembling.

Jacques had wished to go to London with Gaston, but had been denied. He
was to care for the horses. When he saw his master ride down over the
place, waving a hand back towards him, he came in and said to Andree:

"Madame, there is trouble--I do not know what. But I once said I would
never leave him, wherever he go or whatever he did. Well, I never will
leave him--or you, madame--no."

"That is right, that is right," she said earnestly; "you must never
leave him, Jacques. He is a good man."

When Jacques had gone she shut herself up in her room. She was gathering
all her life into the compass of an hour. She felt but one thing: the
ruin of her happiness and Gaston's.

"He is a good man," she said over and over to herself. And the
other--Ian Belward? All the barbarian in her was alive.

The next morning she sta