I thought of the cell window; but if there had been any hope that way, M. Picot had worked an escape.

Bowing my head to think—­to pray—­to imprecate, I lost all sense of time and place.  Some one had slipped quietly into the dark of the church.  I felt rather than saw a nearing presence.  But I paid no heed, for despair blotted out all thought.  Whoever it was came feeling a way down the dark aisle.

Then hot tears fell upon my hands.  In the gloom there paused a childlike figure.

“Rebecca!”

She panted out a wordless cry.  Then she came closer and laid a hand on my arm.  She was struggling to subdue sobs.  The question came in a shivering breath.

“Is Hortense—­so dear?”

“So dear, Rebecca.”

“She must be wondrous happy, Ramsay.”  A tumult of effort.  “If I could only take her place——­”

“Take her place, Rebecca?”

“My father hath the key—­if—­if—­if I took her place, she might go free.”

“Take her place, child!  What folly is this—­dear, kind Rebecca?  Would ’t be any better to send you to the rope than Hortense?  No—­no—­dear child!”

At that her agitation abated, and she puzzled as if to say more.

“Dear Rebecca,” said I, comforting her as I would a sister, “dear child, run home.  Forget not little Hortense in thy prayers.”

May the angel of forgiveness spread a broader mantle across our blunders than our sins, but could I have said worse?

“I have cooked dainties with my own hands.  I have sent her cakes every day,” sobbed Rebecca.

“Go home now, Rebecca,” I begged.

But she stood silent.

“Rebecca—­what is it?”

“You have not been to see me for a year, Ramsay.”

I could scarce believe my ears.

“My father is away to-night.  Will you not come?”

“But, Rebecca——­”

“I have never asked a thing of you before.”

“But, Rebecca——­”

“Will you come for Hortense’s sake?” she interrupted, with a little sharp, hard, falsetto note in her baby voice.

“Rebecca,” I demanded, “what do you mean?”

But she snapped back like the peevish child that she was:  “An you come not when I ask you, you may stay!” And she had gone.

What was she trying to say with her dark hints and overnice scruples of a Puritan conscience?  And was not that Jack Battle greeting her outside in the dark?

I tore after Rebecca at such speed that I had cannoned into open arms before I saw a hulking form across the way.

“Fall-back—­fall-edge!” roared Jack, closing his arms about me. “’Tis Ramsay himself, with a sword like a butcher’s cleaver and a wit like a broadaxe!”

“Have you not heard, Jack?”

“Heard!  Ship ahoy!” cried Jack.  “Split me to the chin like a cod!  Stood I not abaft of you all day long, packed like a herring in a pickle!  ’Twas a pretty kettle of fish in your Noah’s ark to-day!  ’Tis all along o’ goodness gone stale from too much salt,” says Jack.