en and abandoned, and he gathered up the poor shards
of her shattered life, and sought with tender but unavailing hands to
piece them together again. And when she died he vowed to stand my friend
and to make up to me for the want I had of parents. 'Tis by his bounty
that to-day I am lord of Maligny that was for generations the property
of my mother's people. 'Tis by his bounty and loving care that I am what
I am, and not what so easily I might have become had the seed sown by my
father been allowed to put out shoots."

He paused, as if bethinking himself, and looked at her with a wistful,
inquiring smile. "But why plague you," he cried, "with this poor tale of
yesterday that will be forgot to-morrow?"

"Nay--ah, nay," she begged, and put out a hand in impulsive sympathy to
touch his own, so transparent now in its emaciation. "Tell me; tell me!"

His smile softened. He sighed gently and continued. "This gentleman who
adopted me lived for one single purpose, with one single aim in view--to
avenge my mother, whom he had loved, upon the man whom she had loved
and who had so ill repaid her. He reared me for that purpose, as much,
I think, as out of any other feeling. Thirty years have sped, and still
the hand of the avenger has not fallen upon my father. It should
have fallen a month ago; but I was weak; I hesitated; and then this
sword-thrust put me out of all case of doing what I had crossed from
France to do."

She looked at him with something of horror in her face. "Were you--were
you to have been the instrument?" she inquired. "Were you to have
avenged this thing upon your own father?"

He nodded slowly. "'Twas to that end that I was reared," he answered,
and put aside his pipe, which had gone out. "The spirit of revenge
was educated into me until I came to look upon revenge as the best and
holiest of emotions; until I believed that if I failed to wreak it I
must be a craven and a dastard. All this seemed so until the moment came
to set my hand to the task. And then--" He shrugged.

"And then?" she questioned.

"I couldn't. The full horror of it burst upon me. I saw the thing in its
true and hideous proportions, and it revolted me."

"It must have been so," she approved him.

"I told my foster-father; but I met with neither sympathy nor
understanding. He renewed his old-time arguments, and again he seemed
to prove to me that did I fail I should be false to my duty and to my
mother's memory--a weakling, a thing