The child's calm words as she stood confronting the miscreant had almost brought relief. Why indeed should not the villain accomplish his own unmasking? Papa Legros hating the man who had done him and his child an infinite wrong, had a sufficiency of perception in him to realise, with that subtle cruelty of which the meek are alone capable, that he could not inflict more exquisite torture on his enemy than by forcing him to stand self-convicted before the child.
Just for the moment—and truly he may be forgiven for it—all that was good and kind in the gentle nature of the tailor had been ousted by his wrath as a father and as a man. He had found himself unable to strike the liar just now; but he longed for the power to torture his very soul, to bring him to the dust in sorrow and humiliation, to see the proud head down in the mud of abject shame. Great God! did you not know that Papa Legros had learned to love this man like he would his own son, and that the grief which he felt was in part for Rose Marie and in part for the miscreant who had twined himself around his heartstrings, and whom he cherished the while he longed to chastise him with infinite cruelty?
"Father dear," said Rose Marie after a slight pause, "will you not allow me to speak with milor alone?"
"I would not trust thee one second in his keeping, child, now I know him for what he is."
"You need have no fear, dear," she rejoined calmly, "and 'twere best methinks for us all if milor were to tell me himself all that I ought to know."
The candle flickered low, and Michael stood back amidst the shadow; thus the good tailor failed to see if his own shaft had gone home—if it had pierced that armour of stolid English indifference which the descendant of Gallic forebears found so difficult to comprehend.
Certain it is that Michael raised no protest, and that not even a sigh escaped him as this final insult was hurled at him with the utmost refinement of vengeful cruelty.
Rose Marie went up to her father and placed her small cool hands on his. Then with gentle persuasion she drew him up. He yielded to her, for vaguely at the bottom of his heart, he knew that he could trust the man whom he loved and hated, yet even now could not wholly despise. For one moment as father and daughter stood side by side, he took her in his arms and kissed her forehead. She rested against him cold and placid, and when he released her from his embrace she took his rough toil-worn hand and kissed it tenderly. Then with supreme yet irresistible gentleness she led him out of the room.
As he passed close to Michael he held out the fateful letter to him.
"You will show her that," he almost commanded.