what did the French Gover'ment do? They clapped a lot of 'em in irons
and sent 'em away to South America, and my father with 'em. That's why
we heard neither click nor clack of him all this time. He broke free a
year ago. Then he fell sick. When he got well he set sail for Jersey,
was wrecked off the Ecrehos, and everybody knows the rest. Diantre, he's
had a hard time!"

The girl had listened intently. She had heard all these things in flying
rumours, and she had believed the rumours; but now that Maitre Ranulph
told her--Ranulph, whose word she would have taken quicker than the oath
of a Jurat--she doubted. With the doubt her face flushed as though she
herself had been caught in a lie, had done a mean thing. Somehow her
heart was aching for him, she knew not why.

All this time she had held the doughnut poised; she seemed to have
forgotten her work. Suddenly the wooden fork holding the cake was taken
from her fingers by the daft Dormy Jamais who had crept near.

"Des monz a fou," said he, "to spoil good eating so! What says fishing-
man: When sails flap, owner may whistle for cargo. Tut, tut, goose
Carterette!"

Carterette took no note, but said to Ranulph:

"Of course he had to pilot the Frenchmen back, or they'd have killed him,
and it'd done no good to refuse. He was the first man that fought the
French on the day of the battle, wasn't he? I've always heard that."
Unconsciously she was building up a defence for Olivier Delagarde. She
was, as it were, anticipating insinuation from other quarters. She was
playing Ranulph's game, because she instinctively felt that behind this