"If we can possibly prevent it," I said slowly, "you shall never return there."
Slowly the colour died away from her cheeks. Her eyes became preternaturally bright and anxious.
"There is no one," she faltered, "except that man. He called himself my guardian."
"Had you seen him before he came to the convent and fetched you away?" I asked.
"Only once," she answered. "He came to St. Argueil about a year ago. I hated him then. I have hated him ever since. I think that if all men were like that I would be content to stay in the convent all my life."
"You don't remember the circumstances under which he took you there, I suppose?" Mabane asked thoughtfully.
She shook her head.
"I do not remember being taken there at all," she answered. "I think that I was not more than four or five years old."