Would Uncle Luke be at home? He was eccentric and strange in his habits, and perhaps by that time out and away fishing off some rocky point. She scanned the rough pier by the harbour, and shuddered as the scene of that horrible night came back. But there was no sign of the old man there, neither could she see him farther away, and feeling hopeful that perhaps she would be in time to catch him, she hurried on, panting. As she turned a corner of the devious way, and came in sight of the cottage, with Leslie's house and mine chimney far up at the back, she stopped short, breathless and wondering, and with a strange reaction at work, suggesting that after all, this was some mythical invention on the part of the servant, for there, stood Duncan Leslie outside Uncle Luke's cottage awaiting her coming. CHAPTER FIFTY THREE. HER DEFENDER. "Miss Van Heldre!" "Mr Leslie! That woman came to our house this morning to say--Oh, then, it is not true?" "Yes," he said slowly; "it is all true." "True that--that you were hurt--that--that--Oh, pray speak! Louise-- Louise!" "Gone!" said Leslie hoarsely, and, sick at heart and suffering, he leaned back against the wall. "Gone? Louise gone? Gone where?" Leslie shook his head mournfully, and gazed out to sea. "Why do you not speak?" cried Madelaine. "Can you not see how your silence troubles me? Mr Leslie, what is the matter? You were found hurt--and Louise--gone! What does it mean?" He shook his head again. "Where is Mr Luke Vine?" cried Madelaine, turning from him quickly. "At the house." "Then I have come here for nothing," she cried agitatedly. "Mr Leslie, pray, pray speak." He looked at her wistfully for a few moments. "What am I to say?" he said at last. "Tell me--everything." He still remained retentive; but there was a grim smile full of pity and contempt for himself upon his lips as he said coldly-- "Monsieur de Ligny has been." "Monsieur de Ligny?" "The French gentleman, the member of the _haute noblesse_ who was to marry Miss Vine." Madelaine looked at him wonderingly. "Mr Leslie," she said, laying her hand upon his arm, and believing that she saw delirium in his eyes, consequent upon his injury, her late experience having made her prone to anticipate such a sequel. "Mr Leslie, do you know what you are saying?" "Yes, perfectly," he said slowly. "Monsieur de Ligny the French gentleman of whom Miss Marguerite so often talked to me, came last night, while Mr Vine was at your father's, and he was persuading Louise to go with him, when I interfered and said she should not go till her father returned." "Yes?--well?" said Madelaine, watching him keenly. "Well, there was a struggle, and I got the worst of it. That's all." "That is not all!" cried Madelaine angrily. "Louise, what did she say?" "Begged him--not to press her to go," he said slowly and unwillingly, as if the words were being dragged out of him. "Yes?"