The man gave a contented sigh and fell asleep.

Later, she rose stiffly and wearily to her feet.  She stood for a little while looking down upon him.  It was as if she looked upon the dead body of a lover.  She seemed to say a still and white and tearless farewell to him.  Her little hour was done, and it had been, instead of joy, bitterness unspeakable:  ashes in the mouth.  Then she went out of the room and closed the door.

In the hall outside she stood a moment considering, and finally mounted the stairs and went to her father’s door.  She knocked and thought she heard a slight stirring inside, but there was no answer.  She knocked twice again and called out her father’s name, saying that she wished to speak to him, but still he made no reply, and after waiting a little longer she turned away.  She went down-stairs again and out upon the terrace.  The terrace and the lawn before it were still checkered with silver and deep black, but the moon was an hour lower in the west.  A little cool breeze had sprung up, and it was sweet and grateful to her.  She sat down upon one of the stone benches and leaned her head back against the trunk of a tree which stood beside it and she remained there for a long time, still and relaxed, in a sort of bodily and mental languor—­an exhaustion of flesh and spirit.

There came shambling footsteps upon the turf, and the old Michel advanced into the moonlight from the gloom of the trees, emitting mechanical and not very realistic groans.  He had been hard put to it to find any one before whom he could pour out his tale of heroism and suffering.  Coira O’Hara looked upon him coldly, and the gnome groaned with renewed and somewhat frightened energy.

“What is the matter with you?” she asked.  “Why are you about at this hour?”

The old Michel told his piteous tale with tears and passion, protesting that he had succumbed only before the combined attack of twenty armed men, and exhibiting his wounds.  But the girl gave a brief and mirthless laugh.

“You were bribed to tell that, I suppose,” said she.  “By M. Ste. Marie?  Yes, probably.  Well, tell it to my father to-morrow!  You’d better go to bed now.”

The old man stared at her with open mouth for a breathless moment, and then shambled hastily away, looking over his shoulder at intervals until he was out of sight.

But after that the girl still remained in her place from sheer weariness and lack of impulse to move.  She fell to wondering about Captain Stewart and what had become of him, but she did not greatly care.  She had a feeling that her world had come to its end, and she was quite indifferent about those who still peopled its ashes—­or about all of them save her father.

She heard the distant sound of a motor-car, and at that sat up quickly, for it might be Ste. Marie’s friend, Mr. Hartley, returning from Paris.  The sound came nearer and ceased, but she waited for ten minutes before rapid steps approached from the east wall and Hartley was before her.