"You—believe me?" Bertrand jerked out.
"I believe you," Mordaunt answered very gravely.
"You—you forgive?"
Painfully the question came. It went into silence. But the hand that had taken Bertrand's closed slowly and very firmly.
"Et la petite—la petite—" faltered Bertrand.
The silence endured for seconds. It seemed as if no answer would come. And through it the man's anguished breathing came and went with a dreadful pumping sound as of some broken machinery.
At last, slowly, as though he weighed each word before he uttered it,
Mordaunt spoke.
"You may trust her to me," he said.
And the hand in his stirred and gripped in gratitude, Bertrand de
Montville had not spent himself in vain.