sed yet another day of silence.

She was busy with the household accounts that night which Mrs. Lorimer in
her woe had left in some confusion, and they kept her occupied till long
after the children had gone to bed, so late indeed that the servants also
had retired and she was left alone in the dining-room to wrestle with her
difficulties.

She found it next to impossible to straighten out the muddle, and she
came at length reluctantly to the conclusion that it was beyond her
powers. Wondering what the Reverend Stephen would have said to such a
crime, she abstracted a few shillings from her own purse and fraudulently
made up the deficit that had vexed Mrs. Lorimer's soul.

"I can write and tell her now that it has come right," she murmured to
herself, as she rose from the table.

It was close upon eleven o'clock. The house was shuttered and silent. The
stillness was intense; when suddenly, as she was in the act of lighting a
candle, the electric bell pinged through the quiet of the night.

She started and listened. The thought of Piers sprang instinctively to
her mind. Could it be he? But surely even Piers would not come to her at
this hour! It must be some parishioner in need of help.

She turned to answer the summons, but ere she reached the hall it was
repeated twice, with nervous insistence. She hastened to withdraw the
bolts and open the door.

At once a voice accosted her, and a sharp pang of disappointment or
anxiety, she knew not which, went through her.

"Mrs. Denys, is she here?" it said. "May I speak with her?"

It was the unmistakable speech of a Frenchman. By the light of the
hall-lamp, Avery saw the plump, anxious face and little pointed moustache
of the speaker. He entered uninvited and stood before her.

"Ah! But you are Mrs. Denys!" he exclaimed with relief. "_Madame_, I beg
that you will pardon me! I am come to you in distress the most profound.
You will listen to me, yes?"

He regarded her with quick black eyes that both confided and besought.
Avery's heart was beating in great throbs, she felt strangely breathless
and uncertain of herself.

"Where do you come from?" she said. "Who are you?"

But she knew the answer before it came. "I am Victor, _madame_,--Victor
Lagarde. I am the valet of _Monsieur Pierre_ almost since he was born. He
calls me his _bonne_!" A brief smile touched his worried countenance and
was gone. "And now I am come to you, _madame_,--not by his desire. _Mais
non_, h