Times there were when a pensive mood brought the touch of sadness to her grateful heart. She was happy and Frederic was happy, but what of the one who actually had wrought the miracle? That one alone was unhappy, unrequited, undefended. There was no place for her in the new order of things. When Lydia thought of her, as she often did, it was with an indescribable craving in her soul. She longed for the hour to come when Yvonne Brood would lay aside the mask of resignation and demand tribute; when the strange defiance that held all of them at bay would disappear, and they could feel that she no longer regarded them as adversaries. There was no longer a symptom of rancour in the heart of Lydia Desmond. She realised that her beloved's recovery was due almost entirely to the remarkable influence exercised by this woman at a time when mortal agencies appeared to be of no avail. Her absolute certainty that she had the power to thwart death, at least in this instance, had its effect not only on the wounded man, but on those who attended him. Dr Hodder and the nurses were not slow to admit that her magnificent courage, her almost scornful self-assurance, supplied them with an incentive that otherwise might never have got beyond the form of a mere hope. There was something positively startling in her serene conviction that Frederic was not to die. No less a sceptic than the renowned Dr Hodder confided to Lydia and her mother that he now believed in the supernatural and never again would say “there is no God.” Hodder had gone to James Brood at the end of the third day and, with the sweat of the haunted on his brow, had whispered hoarsely that the case was out of his hands. He was no longer the doctor, but an agent governed by a spirit that would not permit death to claim its own. And somehow Brood understood far better than the man of science. The true story of the shooting had long been known to Lydia and her mother. Brood confessed everything to them. He assumed all of the blame for what had transpired on that tragic morning. He humbled himself before them, and when they shook their heads and turned their backs upon him he was not surprised, for he knew they were not convicting him of assault with a deadly firearm. Later on the story of Thérèse was told by him to Frederic and the girl. He did his wife no injustice in the recital. Frederic laid his hand upon the soft brown head at his knee and voiced the thought that was in his mind. “You are wondering, as I am, too, what is to become of Yvonne after to-day,” he said. “There must be an end, and if it doesn't come now, when will it come? To-morrow we sail. It is certain that she is not to accompany us. She has said so herself, and father has said so. So to-day must see the end of things.”