There was a break in the eastern sky; already here and there a blackbird sang in the garden boughs, and the freshness, the quietude, swept her thoughts back to the Chalet de Lognan.  With a great yearning she recalled that evening and the story of the great friendship so quietly related to her in the darkness, beneath the stars.  The world and the people of her dreams existed; only there was no door of entrance into that world for her.  Below her the stream sang, even as the glacier stream had sung, though without its deep note of thunder.  As she listened to it, certain words spoken upon that evening came back to her mind and gradually began to take on a particular application.

“What you know, that you must do, if by doing it you can save a life or save a soul.”

That was the law.  “If you can save a life or save a soul.”  And she did know.  Sylvia raised herself from the window and stood in thought.

Garratt Skinner had made a great mistake that day.  He had been misled by the gentleness of her ways, the sweet aspect of her face, and by a look of aloofness in her eyes, as though she lived in dreams.  He had seen surely that she was innocent, and since he believed that knowledge must needs corrupt, he thought her ignorant as well.  But she was not ignorant.  She had detected his trickeries.  She knew of the conspiracy, she knew of the place she filled in it herself; and furthermore she knew that as a decoy she had been doing her work.  Only yesterday, Walter Hine had been forced to choose between Barstow and herself and he had let Barstow go.  It was a small matter, no doubt.  Still there was promise in it.  What if she stayed, strengthened her hold on Walter Hine and grappled with the three who were ranged against him?

Walter Hine was, of course, and could be, nothing to her.  He was the mere puppet, the opportunity of obedience to the law.  It was of the law that she was thinking—­and of the voice of the man who had uttered it.  She knew—­by using her knowledge, she could save a soul.  She did not think at this time that she might be saving a life too.

Quietly she undressed and slipped into her bed.  She was comforted.  A smile had come upon her lips.  She saw the face of her friend in the darkness, very near to her.  She needed sleep to equip herself for the fight, and while thinking so she slept.  The moonlight faded altogether, and left the room dark.  Beneath the window the stream went singing through the lawn.  After all, its message had been revealed to her in its due season.

CHAPTER XIII

CHAYNE RETURNS

“Hullo,” cried Captain Barstow, as he wandered round the library after luncheon.  “Here’s a scatter-gun.”

He took the gun from a corner where it stood against the wall, opened the breech, shut it again, and turning to the open window lifted the stock to his shoulder.