With a characteristic lift of the shoulders Bertrand continued. “Apres cela we met again and then again. La petite was lonely, and I, I played with her.  I drew for her the pictures in the sand.  We became—­pals.”  He smiled with a touch of wistfulness over the word that his English friend had taught him.  “We shared our secrets.  Once—­she was bathing”—­his voice softened imperceptibly—­“and I took her into my boat and rowed her back.  It was then that I knew first that I loved her.  Yet we remained comrades.  I spoke to her no word of love.  She was too young, and I had nothing to offer.  I said to myself that I would win her when I had won my reputation, and in the meantime I would be patient.  It was not very difficult, for she did not understand.  And then one day we went to explore my cavern—­she called it the Magic Cave, of which she was the princess and I her preux chevalier.  We were as children in those days,” he put in half-apologetically, “and it was her fete. Bien, we started. Le petit Cinders went with us, and almost before we had entered he ran away.  We followed him, for Christine was very anxious.  I had never been beyond the second cavern myself, and we had only one lantern.  We came to a place where the passage divided, and here we agreed that she should wait while I went forward.  I took the lantern.  We could hear him yelp in the distance, and she feared that he was hurt.  So I left her alone, and presently, hearing him, as I thought, in front of me, I ran, and stumbled and fell.  The lantern was broken and I was stunned.  It was long before I recovered, and then it was with great difficulty that I returned.  I found her awaiting me still, and Cinders with her.  It was dark and horrible, but she was too brave to run away.  I heard her singing, and so I found her.  But by that time the sea had reached the mouth of the cave, and there was no retreat.  We had no choice.  We were prisoners for the night.  It might have happened to anyone, monsieur.  It might have happened to you.  You blame me—­not yet?”

Again the note of pleading was in his voice, but Mordaunt maintained his silence.  Only his eyes were no longer sphinx-like.  They were fixed intently upon the Frenchman’s face.

Bertrand went on as though he had been answered.  “I kept watch all through the night, while she slept like an infant in my arms.  You would have done the same.  In the morning when the tide permitted, we laughed over the adventure and returned to Valpre.  She went to her governess and I to the fortress.  By then everybody in Valpre knew what had happened.  They had believed that we were drowned, and when we reappeared all were astonished.  Later they began to whisper, and that evening the villain Rodolphe, being intoxicated, proposed in my presence an infamous toast.  I struck him in the mouth and knocked him down.  He challenged me to a duel, and we fought early in the morning down on the sand.