“Enemies?” He shrugged his shoulders.  “No, I think he would not consider me as an enemy now.”

“And yet you never forgave him?”

“No, never.”  Again his denial was emphatic.  After a moment, seeing her bewilderment, he proceeded to explain.  “If he had apologized, if he had retracted the insult, then it is possible that a reconciliation might have been effected between us.”

“But he didn’t?” said Chris.  “Then what happened?  Did he do nothing at all?”

“For a long time—­nothing,” said Bertrand.

“And then?”

“Then,” very simply he made reply, “he ruined me.”

“Bertie!” She gazed at him with tragedy dawning in her eyes.  “He ruined you!  He!”

“He supplied the evidence against me,” Bertrand said.  “But it was clever.  He spread a net—­so”—­he flung out his hands with an explanatory gesture—­“a net that I see not nor suspect, and then when I am entrapped he draw it close—­close, and—­I am a prisoner.”  He shut his teeth with a click, and for an instant smiled—­the smile of the man who fights with his back against the wall.

But the tragedy had grown from shadow to reality in the turquoise blue eyes of the girl beside him.  “Oh, Bertie,” she said, with a break in her voice, “then it was all my fault—­mine!”

He turned towards her swiftly.  “No, no, no!  Who has said that?  It is not true!” he declared, with vehemence.

“You said it yourself—­almost,” she told him.  “And it is true, for if you hadn’t fought him it would never have happened.  Oh, Bertie!  I’m beginning to think it was a dreadful pity I ever went to Valpre!”

He caught her hands and held them.  “You shall not say it!” he declared passionately.  “You shall not think it! Mignonne, listen!  Those days at Valpre are to me the most precious, the most sacred, the most dear of my life.  They can never return, it is true.  But the memory of them is mine for ever.  Of that can no one deprive me.  While I live I shall cherish them in my heart.”

He cheeked himself abruptly; she was gazing at him with a sort of speculative wonder that had arrested the tragedy in her eyes.  At his sudden pause she began to smile.

“Bertie, dear, forgive me, but I can’t help thinking what a funny Englishman you would have made!  So you really don’t think it was my fault?  I’m so glad.  I should break my heart if it were.”

He stooped, catching her hands up to his lips, whispering inarticulately.

She suffered him, half-laughing.  “Silly Frenchman!” she said softly.

And at that he looked up and let her go.  “You are right,” he said, speaking rather thickly.  “I am foolish.  I am mad.  And you—­you have the patience of an angel to support me thus.”

“Oh no,” said Chris.  “I’m not a bit like an angel.  In fact, I’m rather wicked sometimes—­not very, you know, Bertie, only rather.  Now let me show you my presents.  I brought them up here on purpose.”