'pray, sit down, simone.'

it was colonel sampson's voice, even and decorous, that broke in on the strained silence. he drew a chair up to the oaken table as he spoke. simone obeyed, holding a hand out as if for support. marion took the hand and held it, gently passing her own palm across the trembling fingers. motioning victoire into the room, mrs. curnow quietly shot the bolt and latched the other door that gave on to the kitchen passages. mistress keziah looked curiously from face to face, then with a slight gesture she turned to colonel sampson.

bending over simone, whose eyes never left the woman at the door, sampson spoke.

'tell us, if you can, my dear, who this woman is.'

'my nurse,' instantly replied simone.

'your nurse?' repeated mistress keziah in a clear, steady voice. 'you are not mistaken?' she looked from marion who, speechless, was staring at victoire, to sampson. the colonel nodded once or twice, with a smile. simone leaned her brow on her hand for a minute, then looked up at him. her whole face was transformed.

'i can remember!' she cried, springing up. 'oh, i can remember!' she pressed her fingers to her cheeks, staring beyond the room into the past.

'remember what, simone dear?' said marion in a trembling voice, forcing the girl gently into her chair.

simone's low voice broke on a hysterical note. 'but,' she cried, 'i am not simone. did i not say i have just remembered? i have been trying all my life to remember. i am not simone. i am elise.'

marion stepped back, her grey eyes wide. she looked appealingly at her aunt; but that lady, her gaze bent on simone, appeared to be making a reckoning and a remembrance on her own account. sampson still smiled from the window seat.

marion looked again from simone to the woman who stood, her mouth closed tight, by the door. what could have happened to affect simone's mind thus?

'but,' she faltered, 'elise is upstairs in her room. are there two elises?'

'i told my brother,' rang out mistress keziah's clear voice, 'i told my brother yonder girl was not a de delauret. had your nurse a child, my dear?' she asked, turning to simone.

'why, yes,' said simone slowly. 'let me see now. what was she called? wait a minute. i have it! suzanne marie. we used to play together. how clear it is all growing!'

there was a curious pause. marion stepped forward, a strange look on her colourless face.

'then suzanne marie is upstairs,' triumphantly said mistress keziah. 'the whole thing is clear.'

a wail broke from marion's lips. 'i cannot understand it. aunt keziah, are we all going mad?'

simone, staring across at victoire, seemed not to hear, and sampson, watching the girl, saw that she was slowly linking together the scattered chain of her memories.

'the woman victoire will doubtless explain,' said mistress keziah. 'i told your father there was some hideous mystery. the whole village knew. any one else but my brother would have known. the woman just put her own child in simone's place.'

again a stupefied silence fell on the room. there was no word from the woman at the door.

quite suddenly marion burst into tears.

'it is horrible,' she said. 'horrible! have i been all these years playing and sleeping and eating with some one called suzanne marie, and the real elise starving in london? simone,'—she threw her arms round the girl's neck,—'forgive me, forgive us.'

mistress keziah's old eyes watered as she looked at the girl who had always been so self-controlled. 'my darling,' she said, 'it was not your fault.'

'i cannot bear it!' cried marion. 'and i care not who sees me weep. romaine says she found simone in a fearful state in a gutter in crutched friars. she had been so dreadfully treated that she nearly died. then when romaine had nursed her back to health she could not remember anything.'

'no,' broke in simone's toneless voice. 'no. but i remember now. dear marion, do not be unhappy.'

'i cannot help but be unhappy,' said marion, drying her eyes. 'we ought to have found out. somebody ought to have done something. think of it, aunt keziah, simone working in london, stitching all day for a bit of food. i cannot bear it.' marion sat down and buried her face in her hands.

'my lamb,' said mrs. curnow gently, 'doan't 'ee take on so, doan't 'ee now.'

'poor simone,' said marion in a strangled voice as she wrestled for composure, 'and left in a gutter to die! and that hard life! and she would have been so happy at garth.'

simone's low voice here broke in; simone had grown curiously still. one would have said she was a detached spectator of affairs that concerned other people.

'why did you do it, victoire?'

victoire's mouth tightened to a still harder line.

'why did you do it?' repeated simone. 'were you not well treated as my nurse?'

'i can tell you that,' said sampson. 'victoire wanted the estates for her own child.'

simone turned round in her chair.

'what estates, m. le colonel? it is all quite clear to me now—my memory, i mean. my father told me when he was very ill, just before he died, that i was to go to england with victoire and live with a very dear friend of his until i was grown up. he said nothing of estates. in fact, i always thought we were poor. but then, i was only a child of eight.'

'your mother inherited lands from her father's family, my dear. your grandfather's direct heir died. you are the inheritor of his estate. victoire knew that.'

'i see,' said simone. 'i can see it all. so that was why my nurse, to my great delight, brought little suzanne marie with us. i was so pleased. she was my playmate. i remember how nice it was to have suzanne marie going with me to the strange place. i remember the ship and the sea. i remember the queer english voices when we landed and got into the coach to go to london.' simone spoke slowly as she called up the minute details of the distant day. 'there was a place victoire took us to, to lodge until my guardian came. we had queer sort of meat for dinner, and a pudding with plums in it. then we went out into the street to find a shop. victoire was going to buy me a new ribbon for my hair. probably you remember too, victoire. "a nice black ribbon," you said. then you—you left me in the street. i walked and walked and cried until i was sick. and then——' simone stopped. 'i don't think i want to remember any more, m. le colonel,' she said, in that quiet composed voice which drew from mistress keziah and sampson cross-glances of admiration. 'that is all. and so suzanne marie came here and was the kind admiral's ward.'

'but was there no one all these years who saw victoire or elise?' asked colonel sampson, his voice breaking in on the silence that had followed simone's speech. 'no one of the family?'

the figure by the door stirred, and was still again. marion raised her head. there was something uncanny in this trying of a silent prisoner.

'do you know, marion?' continued the colonel

'i remember my father told me,' said marion in a low voice, 'that the only person left was m. lebrun the lawyer.'

'ah!' the exclamation came from mrs. curnow. 'so now us do be knowing. mistress penrock and you, sir, i can tell 'ee. victoire here have had as you might say a secret messenger all these years, a man as do be known for the vilest wretch in the waters. her's gone to france and come back, many a time a year, putting into haunted cove down along and making a signal. a foul place that, sir, such as no god-fearing man would step into. and they two victoire and mademoiselle, have gone down secret-like, to talk to un and leave messages belike. always when there was rough weather or a thick mist, so as they thought, i suppose, no one would know. but the village knew. the village have known for years there was something tur'ble wrong. i see it now, plain as my hand. the only danger for they two was the old lawyer. and when at last the admiral arranges for the old gentleman to be a-coming over, victoire finds out, and her suddenly learns her dear mother be sick unto death, and needs a daughter's care.'

'why?' queried mistress keziah. 'having done all this, why should she fear meeting the lawyer? in ten years a child alters out of recognition. elise and simone are of the same complexion.'

simone was watching the face by the door. 'she was afraid,' she said.

'oh yes,' remarked sampson. 'she was afraid of the old lawyer, afraid that in spite of her care a whisper of her secret might have been heard. it was very clever of her to go away. a lawyer is of an inquiring turn of mind, as a rule, given to asking questions. and this old gentleman who, i fear, must be dead, or victoire would not be with us (i remember now your talking of him in london, marion—he was ailing, and his journey had to be postponed), this old gentleman might have had the wit to question the two, victoire and elise, separately. there might not have been an exact correspondence in replies. and so victoire goes out of the way and leaves elise to manage the old gentleman herself.'

'and now us do be knowing another thing,' burst out the old housekeeper. 'us knows why mademoiselle swore away dear master roger's life. master roger had found out about the doings in haunted cove.'

victoire made a sudden movement. at last she spoke.

'lies!' she snapped out. 'all lies. mademoiselle did nothing of the sort. 'tis all nothing but lies and hatred. you have hated us all the time, you and you'—nodding from mrs. curnow to marion. she fixed her beady eyes on simone. 'you know as well as i know that yonder poor girl lying upstairs is elise de delauret, and you are a playmate of hers whom i brought over in the kindness of my heart. how could i help it if you strayed away in london? did i not seek and seek——'

colonel sampson stepped forward. 'if i were you i should say nothing more.'

'would you? but i've more to say. who is there to believe what that upstart'—she pointed to simone—'chooses to say? there is no one living but myself who knows who is elise de delauret. i have proof. where is yours?'

'this is really very fine,' said mistress keziah, her eyes gleaming. 'but quite wasted. curnow—take——'

'your proof!' cried victoire again. 'her word against mine and mademoiselle's upstairs.'

colonel sampson was fumbling in his pocket, and drew out a miniature portrait, a pretty thing, framed in pearls. he handed it to mistress keziah with a significant glance towards simone, who, apparently unconcerned, but with a strained look growing on her face, was watching victoire. mistress keziah looked from the face in the portrait to the face opposite her. victoire darted forward and peered over the lady's shoulder. she caught a quick breath. just as victoire's hand clutched at the miniature sampson cried out a word of warning. mrs. curnow swung her heavy weight on the woman and bore her aside.

'take her out,' said mistress keziah to the housekeeper. 'put her in a chamber by herself and have door and window guarded.'

'i'll put her in the kitchen, if it please you, mistress,' said mrs. curnow grimly. 'there be plenty there glad and willing to watch what her does.'

colonel sampson opened the door and himself watched victoire firmly escorted into the kitchen by mrs. curnow.