say
nothing." Then, quickly, as he leaned toward the bed: "But if he is
not to see you, you must go at once!"

"Yes!" she breathed. "Yes! You are good, monsieur--you are very, very
good. And--and Monsieur Vinailles, and Mademoiselle Bliss, if Monsieur
Vinailles should have told her--you will not let them tell Jean any one
was here?"

"I will speak to them," he said quietly. "But go then, mademoiselle,
immediately!"

"And--and, monsieur"--her voice breaking--"Jean will not--not die?"

"No, mademoiselle, he will not die, I think I can promise that now
without any reservation," he replied with a smile. "But, _ma foi_, if
he is not to know--eh!"

She stole a half frightened, half wistful glance toward the bed--then
ran from the room and out into the hall.

"He must not know! He must not know!"--she kept saying that to
herself; repeating it again and again, as she went slowly down the
stairs. It seemed as though those were the words that summed up her
life, that she had been saying them in her soul ever since the day
those strangers had come to Bernay-sur-Mer. "Jean must not know!"

She halted suddenly on the lower step, and her face whitened a little.
Paul Valmain was standing in the doorway of the salon. He was still
here then, this Paul Valmain, the man who--who had tried to kill Jean!

"Mademoiselle!" he cried out. "See, I am still waiting! I must speak
to you--here--in the salon--in the _atelier_ for a moment!"

It seemed that she must run from him, that she abhorred him--and
yet--and yet--"Jean must not know!" She must get Paul Valmain to
promise too--Paul Valmain, and that other man who had been with him.

"Mademoiselle!" he said again. "I--"

"Yes," she said--and stepped past him through the salon door.

-- VII --

MEA CULPA

The man frightened her. He had caught her arm the moment she had
entered the salon, and had hurried her roughly across the room and into
the _atelier_; and, besides, his face was ghastly it was so colourless,
and it kept twitching, and his eyes burned with such an unnatural light.

"My arm, monsieur!" she cried out. "You are hurting me!"

He laughed at her in a hollow way, and only tightened his hold, as he
pulled her in front of the clay figure of the "_Fille du Regiment_."

"Stand so!" he burst out. "With your head--so! As you were when you
came from that dressing room! So--so!"--he pushed her chin up, and
grasped her by the shoulders.

"Monsieur