h and to spare into the sober gray
of her life. It was when the red blood started under his vicious blows that
their life together ended.

Martel had no beliefs whatever, except in himself and his powers of
outwitting any preventive officer ever born.

Rachel Carre's illusions died one by one. The colours faded, the gray
darkened. Martel was much away on his business; possibly also on his
pleasures.

One night, after a successful run, he returned home very drunk, and
discovered more than usual cause for resentment in his wife's reproachful
silence. He struck her, wounding her to the flowing of blood, and she
picked up her boy and fled along the cliffs to Beaumanoir where Jeanne
Falla lived, with George Hamon not far away at La Vauroque.

Jeanne Falla took her in and comforted her, and as soon as George Hamon
heard the news, he started off with a neighbour or two to Fregondee to
attend to Martel.

In the result, and not without some tough fighting, for Martel was a
powerful man and furious at their invasion, they carried him in bonds to
the house of the Senechal, Pierre Le Masurier, for judgment. And M. le
Senechal, after due consideration, determined, like a wise man, to rid
himself of a nuisance by flinging it over the hedge, as one does the slugs
that eat one's cabbages. Martel came from Guernsey and was not wanted in
Sercq. To Guernsey therefore he should go, with instructions not to return
to Sercq lest worse should follow. Hence the procession that disturbed the
slumbers of the Creux Road that day.

CHAPTER II

HOW RACHEL CARRE WENT BACK TO HER FATHER

"You paid off some of your old score up there, last night, George," said
one of the men who had stood watching the boat which carried Martel back to
Guernsey.

"Just a little bit," said Hamon, as he rubbed his hand gently over a big
bruise on the side of his head. "He's a devil to fight and as strong as an
ox;" and they turned and followed the Senechal and Philip Carre through the
tunnel.

"Good riddance!" said a woman in the crowd, taking off her black sun-bonnet
and giving it an angry shake before putting it on again. "We don't want any
of that kind here,"--with a meaning look at the big fishermen behind, which
set them grinning and winking knowingly.

"Aw then, Mistress Guilbert," said one, lurching uncomfortably under her
gaze, with his hands deep in his trouser pockets. "We others know better
than that."

"And a good thing for you, too. T