he has grossly betrayed you."

"That I certainly intend doing," was the answer. "But I wonder,
Flockart, if I might take you at your word, and ask you to do me a
favour? I am so helpless, or I would not think of troubling you."

"Only tell me what you wish, and I will do it with pleasure."

"Very well, then," replied the blind man. "Perhaps I shall want you to
go to Paris at once, watch the actions of young Murie, and report to me
from time to time. Would you?"

A look of bright intelligence overspread the man's features as a new
vista opened before him. Sir Henry was about to take him into his
confidence! "Why, with pleasure," he said cheerily. "I'll start
to-morrow, and rest assured that I'll keep a very good eye upon the
young gentleman. You now know the painful truth concerning your
daughter--the truth which Lady Heyburn has told you so often, and which
you have never yet heeded."

"Yes, Flockart," answered the afflicted man, taking his guest's hand in
warm friendship. "I once disliked you--that I admit; but you were quite
frank the other day, and now to-night you have succeeded in making a
discovery that, though it has upset me terribly, may mean my salvation."

CHAPTER XXI

THROUGH THE MISTS

Sir Henry refused to speak with his daughter when, on the following
morning, she stole in and laid her hand softly upon his arm. He ordered
her, in a tone quite unusual, to leave the library. Through the morning
hours she had lain awake trying to make a resolve. But, alas! she dared
not tell the truth; she was in deadly fear of Flockart's reprisals.

That morning, at nine o'clock, Lady Heyburn and Flockart had held
hurried consultation in secret, at which he had explained to her what
had occurred.

"Excellent!" she had remarked briefly. "But we must now have a care, my
dear friend. Mind the girl does not throw all prudence to the winds and
turn upon us."

"Bah!" he laughed, "I don't fear that for a single second." And he left
the room again, to salute her in the breakfast-room a quarter of an hour
later as though they had not met before that day.

Gabrielle, on leaving her father, went out for a long walk alone, away
over the heather-clad hills. For hours she went on--Jock, her Aberdeen
terrier, toddling at her side, in her hand a stout ash-stick--regardless
of the muddy roads or the wet weather. It was grey, damp, and dismal,
one of those days which in the Highlands are often so very cheerless and
dispirit