would come if she is not killed. I wanted you to
_know_ that it was true--I wanted you to _know_!"

"That was it, my pet lamb!" Dowie kept hugging her to her breast "We'd
both of us know! We know _you_--we do! No one need prove things to us.
We _know_!"

"It frightened me so to think of asking you," shivered Robin. "When you
came to Eaton Square I could not bear it. If your dear face had looked
different I should have died. But I couldn't go to bed to-night without
finding out. The Duchess and Lord Coombe are very kind and sorry for me
and they say they believe me--but I can't feel sure they really do. And
nobody else would. But you and Mademoiselle. You loved me always and I
loved you. And I prayed you would."

Dowie knew how Mademoiselle had died--of the heap of innocent village
people on which she had fallen bullet-riddled. But she said nothing of
her knowledge.

"Mademoiselle would say what I do and she would stay and take care of
you as I'm going to do," she faltered. "God bless you for asking me
straight out, my dear! I was waiting for you to speak and praying you'd
do it before I went to bed myself. I couldn't have slept a wink if you
hadn't."

For a space they sat silent--Robin on her knee like a child drooping
against her warm breast. Outside was the night stillness of the moor,
inside the night stillness held within the thick walls of stone rooms
and passages, in their hearts the stillness of something which yet
waited--unsaid.

At last--

"Did Lord Coombe tell you who--he was, Dowie?"

"He said perhaps you would tell me yourself--if you felt you'd like me
to know. He said it was to be as you chose."

Robin fumbled with a thin hand at the neck of her dress. She drew from
it a chain with a silk bag attached. Out of the bag she took first a
small folded package.

"Do you remember the dry leaves I wanted to keep when I was so little?"
she whispered woefully. "I was too little to know how to save them. And
you made me this tiny silk bag."

Dowie's face was almost frightened as she drew back to look. There was
in her motherly soul the sudden sense of panic she had felt in the
nursery so long ago.

"My blessed child!" she breathed. "Not that one--after all that time!"

"Yes," said Robin. "Look, Dowie--look."

She had taken a locket out of the silk bag and she opened it and Dowie
looked.

Perhaps any woman would have felt what she felt when she saw the face
which seemed to laugh rejoicing into h