He had not divined her doubt, nor did he discern her quibble. Still, "Could I not go to him to-day?" he said. "If he is still in the neighbourhood?" She shook her head. "I do not know where he is," she answered, glad that she could say so much with truth. "But if he show himself, and it be safe, I will let you know. Roger----" "Ha! To be sure, Roger may know?" She smiled. "Roger and I are one," she said. "You must not expect to get from him what I do not give." She said it naively, with just so much of a smile as showed her at her best, and he hastened to say that he left himself in her hands. She blushed through her sunburn at that, but clung to her quibble, telling herself that this was a stranger, the other a brother, and that if she destroyed Charles she could never forgive herself. He saw that she was disturbed, and he changed the subject. "You have always lived here?" he asked. "Yes," she answered, "but I can remember when things were different with us. We were not always so broken. Before Coutras--but," with a faint smile, "you have heard my father on that, and will not wish to hear me." "The Vicomte was present at the battle?" "Yes, he was in the centre of the Catholic army with the Duke of Joyeuse. He escaped with his life. But we lay in the path of the pursuit after the flight, and they sacked the house, and burned the hamlet by the ford--the one you passed--and the two farms in the bend of the river--the two behind you. They swept off every four-legged thing, every horse, and cow, and sheep, and left us bare. One of the servants who resisted was killed, and--and my mother died of the shock." She broke off with an uncontrollable shiver. She was silent. After a pause, "Perhaps you were at Coutras, M. des Voeux?" she said, looking up. "I was not of the party who sacked your house," he answered gravely. She knew then that he had fought on the other side; and she admired him for the tact with which he made it known to her. He was a soldier then. She wondered, as she bent over her work, if he had fought elsewhere, and under whom, and with what success. Had he prospered or sunk? He called himself a poor gentleman of Brittany, but that might have been his origin only, he might be something more now. In the earnestness of her thoughts she turned her eyes on his ring, and she blushed brightly when with a quick, almost rude movement he hid his hand. "I beg your pardon!" she murmured. "I was not thinking." "It is I should beg yours," he said quietly. "It is only that I do not want you to come to a false conclusion. This ring--in a word I wear it, but the arms are not mine. That is all." "Does that apply also," she asked, looking at him ingenuously, "to the pistols you carry, M. des Voeux? Or should I address you--for I saw last evening that they bore a duke's coronet--as your Grace?" He laughed gaily. "They are mine, but I am not a duke," he said. "Nor are you M. des Voeux?"