“This is all utterly astounding, dad!” cried Gabrielle.  “If you knew who it was who deliberately blinded you, why didn’t you prosecute him?”

“Because there was no witness of his dastardly act, my child.  And I myself never saw him.  Therefore I was compelled to remain in silence, and allow the world to believe my affliction due to natural causes,” was his blank response.

The sallow-faced foreigner laughed again, laughed in the face of the man whose eyesight he had so deliberately taken.  He could not speak.  What had he to say?

“Well,” remarked Hamilton, “we have at least the satisfaction of knowing that both this man and his accomplice will stand their trial for their heartless crime in France, and that they will meet their just punishment according to the laws of God and of man.”

“And I,” added Walter, in a voice broken by emotion, as he again took Gabrielle’s hand tenderly, “have the supreme satisfaction of knowing that my darling is cleared of a foul, dastardly, and terrible charge.”

CHAPTER XXXIX

CONTAINS THE CONCLUSION

After long consultation—­Krail having been removed in custody back to the village—­it was agreed that the only charges that could be substantiated against Flockart were those of complicity in the ingenious attempt upon Hamilton’s life by which poor Miss Bryant had been sacrificed, and also in the theft of Sir Henry’s papers.

But was it worth while?

At the Baronet’s suggestion, he was allowed freedom to leave the upstairs room where he had been detained by the three stalwart servants; and, without waiting to speak to any one, he had made his way down the drive.  He had, as was afterwards found, left Auchterarder Station for London an hour later.

The painful impression produced upon everybody by Sir Henry’s statement of what had actually occurred on the night of the great meeting at the Albert Hall having somewhat subsided, Murie mentioned to the blind man the legend of the Whispers, and also the curious discovery which Gabrielle and he had made earlier in the morning.

“Ah,” laughed the old gentleman a trifle uneasily, “and so you’ve discovered the truth at last, eh?”

“The truth—­no!” Murie said.  “That is just what we are so very anxious to hear from you, Sir Henry.”

“Well,” he said, “you may rest your minds perfectly content that there’s nothing supernatural about them.  It was to my own advantage to cause weird reports and uncanny legends to be spread in order to preserve my secret, the secret of the Whispers.”

“But what is the secret, Sir Henry?” asked Hamilton eagerly.  “We, curiously enough, have similar Whispers at Hetzendorf.  I’ve heard them myself at the old chateau.”

“And of course you have believed in the story which my good friend the Baron has caused to be spread, like myself:  the legend that those who hear them die quickly and suddenly,” said the old man, with a smile upon his grey face.  “Like myself, he wished to keep away all inquisitive persons from the spot.”