The truth flashed upon the young girl’s active brain, quickened by seclusion and fed by solitary books.  She read with keen eyes the miserable secret of her father’s strange guest in the poverty-stricken walls, in the mute evidences of menial handicraft performed in loneliness and privation, in this piteous adaptation of an accident to save the conscious shame of premeditated toil.  She knew now why he had stammeringly refused to receive her father’s offer to buy back the goods he had given him; she knew now how hardly gained was the pittance that paid his rent and supported his childish vanity and grotesque pride.  From a peg in the corner hung the familiar masquerade that hid his poverty—­the pearl-gray trousers, the black frock-coat, the tall shining hat—­in hideous contrast to the penury of his surroundings.  But if they were here, where was he, and in what new disguise had he escaped from his poverty?  A vague uneasiness caused her to hesitate and return to the open door.  She had nearly reached it when her eye fell on the pallet which it partly illuminated.  A singular resemblance in the ragged heap made her draw closer.  The faded quilt was a dressing-gown, and clutching its folds lay a white, wasted hand.

The emigrant childhood of Rose Nott had been more than once shadowed by scalping-knives, and she was acquainted with Death.  She went fearlessly to the couch, and found that the dressing-gown was only an enwrapping of the emaciated and lifeless body of De Ferrieres.  She did not retreat or call for help, but examined him closely.  He was unconscious, but not pulseless; he had evidently been strong enough to open the door for air or succor, but had afterwards fallen into a fit on the couch.  She flew to her father’s locker and the galley fire, returned, and shut the door behind her, and by the skillful use of hot water and whiskey soon had the satisfaction of seeing a faint color take the place of the faded rouge in the ghastly cheeks.  She was still chafing his hands when he slowly opened his eyes.  With a start, he made a quick attempt to push aside her hand and rise.  But she gently restrained him.

“Eh—­what!” he stammered, throwing his face back from hers with an effort and trying to turn it to the wall.

“You have been ill,” she said quietly.  “Drink this.”

With his face still turned away he lifted the cup to his chattering teeth.  When he had drained it he threw a trembling glance round the room and at the door.

“There’s no one been here but myself,” she said quickly.  “I happened to see the door open as I passed.  I didn’t think it worth while to call any one.”

The searching look he gave her turned into an expression of relief, which, to her infinite uneasiness, again feebly lightened into one of antiquated gallantry.  He drew the dressing-gown around him with an air.

“Ah! it is a goddess, Mademoiselle, that has deigned to enter the cell where—­where—­I amuse myself.  It is droll, is it not?  I came here to make—­what you call—­the experiment of your father’s fabric.  I make myself—­ha! ha!—­like a workman.  Ah, bah! the heat, the darkness, the plebeian motion make my head to go round.  I stagger, I faint, I cry out, I fall.  But what of that?  The great God hears my cry and sends me an angel. Voila!”