suddenly turned to her. A dark project came to him. He himself could
not prevail with her; but he would reach her yet, through the child. If
the child were in his hands, she would come to him.

"Remember, I will have the child," he said, his face black with evil
purpose.

She did not deign reply, but stood fearless and still, as, throwing open
the door, he rushed out into the night. She listened until she heard his
horse's hoofs upon the rocky upland. Then she went to the door, locked
it, and barred it. Turning, she ran with a cry as of hungry love to the
little bed. Crushing the child to her bosom, she buried her face in his
brown curls.

"My son, my own, own son!" she said.




CHAPTER XXXVIII

If at times it would seem that Nature's disposition of the events of a
life or a series of lives is illogical, at others she would seem to play
them with an irresistible logic--loosing them, as it were, in a trackless
forest of experience, and in some dramatic hour, by an inevitable
attraction, drawing them back again to a destiny fulfilled. In this
latter way did she seem to lay her hand upon the lives of Philip
d'Avranche and Guida Landresse.

At the time that Elie Mattingley, in Jersey, was awaiting hanging on