She placed her little hand, not to her side, but towards the centre of the breast, where the heart really lies. “It is terrible,” murmured Hellier. “Terrible—oh, you cannot think!—and now you know why it can never be.” “If his innocence were proved?” asked he. “Ah, then—,” she replied. Hellier took her hand and held it in both of his. “Listen to me,” he said. “I have seen much of life and men, I do not say it to please you or comfort you, but the face you have shown me is a face incapable of—that. If I could stake my life, and if it were possible for me to stake it upon your father’s innocence, I would do so. I am a member of the English Bar; after what you have told me of the barrier between us, a barrier which is no barrier to me, I will do all that in me lies to remove it. Nothing may come of my efforts, everything may. When a man works from love he goes doubly armed. Tell me, my friend, where I can learn the details of your trouble, not from your lips, for that would be too painful—have you no papers—” “I have the _dossier_ of the case,” replied Mademoiselle Lefarge. “I will place it in your hands; I have belief in you. When I first saw you, something drew me towards you, perhaps it was the spirit of my father—for I feel that he is no more—perhaps it was his spirit pointing out to me his avenger, perhaps—” She paused. “Yes,” said Hellier. “Perhaps,” she said, “it was an instinct that told me that some day—” “Yes.” “Some day, I should love you.” The next afternoon Hellier returned to London. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IV IT was in the year 1600, or thereabouts, that the family of Gyde first took its place in the history of Cumberland. A family may be likened to a thistle; plant it here or there, and, if left, it grows and flourishes, it casts its spores, like thistle-down on the wind of chance, and the spores blown here or there fade or flourish, as the case may be. The wind of chance in the year 1600, blew Sir John Gyde to the wilds of Cumberland, from the original home of the family in Pembrokeshire. How splendidly they built in those old days may still be seen in the house he made for himself. Sir John was a gentleman of a very old school; had he lived in the present day, and did the law take cognizance of his pleasantries and way of life, he would have found himself, within twenty-four hours, in the gaol of Carlisle, and he would have been hanged, to a certainty, after the lapse of three clear Sundays following his conviction at the next assizes. In 1600, however, he was respected with that unalloyed respect which fear of a bloody-minded and powerful scoundrel inspired in the medieval mind. For Cumberland, in 1600, was medieval to the core, and the core is tinged, though ever so slightly, with medievalism still.