the ships with all the company that had dwelled within the castle, and drew out a little way from shore.  Then the ships lay to and watched the flames mounting the castle walls.  The tower wherein the Princess Joceliande was prisoned was the topmost turret of the building, so that many a roof crashed in, and many a rampart bowed out and crumbled to the ground, or ever the fire touched it.  But just as night was drawing on, lo! a great tongue of flame burst through the window from within, and the Sieur Rudel beheld in the midst of it as it were the figure of a woman dancing.

Thereupon he signed to his sailors to hoist the sail again, and the other ships obeying his example, he led the way gallantly to Broye.

A LIBERAL EDUCATION.

“So you couldn’t wait!”

Mrs. Branscome turned full on the speaker as she answered deliberately:  “You have evidently not been long in London, Mr. Hilton, or you would not ask that question.”

“I arrived yesterday evening.”

“Quite so.  Then will you forgive me one tiny word of advice?  You will learn the truth of it soon by yourself; but I want to convince you at once of the uselessness—­to use no harder word—­of trying to revive a flirtation—­let me see! yes, quite two years old.  You might as well galvanise a mummy and expect it to walk about.  Besides,” she added inconsistently, “I had to marry and—­and—­you never came.”

“Then you sent the locket!”

The word sent a shiver through Mrs. Branscome with a remembrance of the desecration of a gift which she had cherished as a holy thing.  She clung to flippancy as her defence.

“Oh, no!  I never sent it.  I lost it somewhere, I think.  Must you go?” she continued, as Hilton moved silently to the door.  “I expect my husband in just now.  Won’t you wait and meet him?”

“How dare you?” Hilton burst out.  “Is there nothing of your true self left?”

* * * * * David Hilton’s education was as yet in its infancy.  This was not only his first visit to England, but, indeed, to any spot further afield than Interlaken.  All of his six-and-twenty years that he could recollect had been passed in a chalet on the Scheidegg above Grindelwald, his only companion an elderly recluse who had deliberately cut himself off from communion with his fellows.  The trouble which had driven Mr. Strange, an author at one time of some mark, into this seclusion, was now as completely forgotten as his name.  Even David knew nothing of its cause.  That Strange was his uncle and had adopted him when left an orphan at the age of six, was the sum of his information.  For although the pair had lived together for twenty years, there had been little intercourse of thought between them, and none of sentiment.  Strange had, indeed, throughout shut his nephew, not merely from his heart, but also from his confidence, at first out of sheer neglect, and afterwards, as