"I am indeed sorry," said Gavin, for suffering could always arouse his sympathies wherever he found it. "Is there no hope at all of any relief?" "None whatever. The nerves have perished. So much I owe to my English friendship--the last gift it bestowed upon me. Shall I tell you by what means I became blind, _mein herr_? Go down to the salt mines at Okna and when they blast the rock there, you will say, 'Georges Odin, the Englishman's friend, lost his eyesight in that mine.' It is true before God. And the man who put this calamity upon me--what of him? A rich man, _mein herr_, honored by the world, a great noble in his own country, a leader of the people, the possessor of much land and many houses. He sent me to Okna. We were boys together on the hills. If he shamed me in the race for all that young men seek of life, I suffered it because of my friendship. Then the night fell upon me--you know the story. He took from me the woman I loved. We met as men of honor should. I avenged the wrong--my God, what a vengeance with the Russian hounds upon my track and the fortress prison already garnished for me! _Mein herr_, you knew of this story or you would not have come to my house. Tell me what I shall add to it, for I listen patiently." He was a fine old actor and the melodramatic gesture with which he accompanied the recital would have made a deep impression upon one less given to cool analysis and reticent common sense than Gavin Ord. Gavin, indeed, had thought upon this strange history almost night and day since Lord Melbourne had first related it. If he had come to have a settled opinion upon it all, nothing that had yet transpired upon his journey from England altered that opinion or even modified it. This blind man he believed to have been the victim of the Russian Government. Lord Melbourne had acted treacherously in making no attempt to release his old rival from the mines; but had he so attempted, his efforts must have been futile--for the Russians believed that Georges Odin was their most relentless enemy and had pursued him with bitter and lasting animosity. So the affair stood in Gavin's mind--nor was he influenced in any way by the forensic appeal now addressed to him. "Yes," he said slowly, "I know your story, Chevalier, and I am here because of it. Let me say in a word that I come because Lord Melbourne is anxious and ready, in so far as it is possible to do so, to atone for any wrong he may have done you. He desires nothing so much as that you two, who were friends in boyhood, should be reconciled now when years must be remembered and the accidents of life be provided for. So he sends me to Bukharest to invite you to England, there to hear him for himself and to tell him how best he may serve you. I can add nothing to that invitation save my own belief in his honesty, and in the reality of those motives which now actuate him. If you decide to accompany me to England----"