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 'Most unlikely. That is what Mademoiselle thinks. She thinks that it is Blaise.'

'Well; I'll go down to Buissac, then.' Graham placed the cat in Joseph's arms as he spoke. 'But I'll go to the cottage first, and tell Mademoiselle that I will bring the old lady back, if I can find her. How's that?—Joseph,' said Graham suddenly, looking down into the old man's shrinking eyes; 'you may trust me.'

'Trust you, Monsieur?' Joseph eyed him askew.

'Yes. You may trust me and Madame Graham. We want the same thing for Mademoiselle.'

'You cannot take her from Buissac. You cannot take her from France,' said Joseph in a low, concentrated voice. 'She remains with me. I have cared for her since she was a child. I have known her family from before her birth. It would kill her to take her away.'

'No; no; no;—it wouldn't kill her,' said Graham, also speaking in a low voice and as if to an equal. 'And you shall not be left. Trust me. That is all. If you could understand what I feel for her, even you would be satisfied.'

'You cannot understand her,' said Joseph. 'You are a stranger.'

Graham stood there in the hall, and for a moment, as he looked at Joseph, another fear flickered in his heart. Was Joseph right? What was the life he could give Marthe Ludérac? Would he take her from the darkness that she knew into another, a strange darkness?