NRLF 
 
JENNINGS, 
 FRANCES WALDEAUX 
 
 a 
 
 BY 
 
 REBECCA HARDING DAVIS 
 
 If 
 
 AUTHOR OF "DOCTOR WARRICK S DAUGHTERS 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 T. DE THULSTRUP 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 
 1897 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 DOCTOR WARRICK S DAUGHTERS. A Novel. 
 By REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. Illustrated. Post 
 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 50. 
 
 Mrs. Davis has given her readers a thoroughly inter 
 esting story; more than that, an absorbing one. There 
 is a real vitality about the characters and the situations 
 that fascinates one. Living Church, Chicago. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 
 
 Copyright, 1896, by HARPER BROTHERS. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
hi 
 
 A REMEMBRANCER 
 
 OF 
 BRITTANY 
 
 FOR THE BEST FELLOW-TRAVELLER 
 IN THE WORLD 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " TO-MORROW WE SHALL BE AT HOME*" . . Frontispiece 
 "HE LED HER UP TO THE CHAIR" .... Facing p. 28 
 "YOU CAN CHOOSE BETWEEN US " .... " 54 
 
 " DO YOU THINK WOLFBURGH SCHLOSS IS 
 
 LIKE THAT? " " 112 
 
 " SHE IS DEAD. I DID IT " " 156 
 
FRANCES WALDEAUX 
 
 CHAPTER I"" 
 
 IN another minute the Kaiser Wilhelm would 
 push off from her pier in Hoboken. The last 
 bell had rung, the last uniformed officer and 
 white-jacketed steward had scurried up the 
 gangway. The pier was massed with people 
 who had come to bid their friends good-by. 
 They were all Germans, and there had been 
 unlimited embracing and kissing and sobs of 
 "Ach! mein lieber Schatz!" and " Gott be- 
 wahre Dick ! " 
 
 Now they stood looking up to the crowded 
 decks, shouting out last fond words. A band 
 playing "The Merry Maiden and the Tar" 
 marched on board. 
 
 The passengers pressed against the rails, 
 looking down. Almost every one held flowers 
 which had been brought to them : not costly 
 bouquets, but homely bunches of mangolds 
 
or pinks. They carried, too, little German 
 or American flags, which they waved fran 
 tically. 
 
 The gangways fell, and the huge ship parted 
 from the dock. It was but an inch, but the 
 ."whole .t)Cea*a yiwned in it between those who 
 w/2p.t.<and .th.ose.^who stayed. There was a 
 sudden? silefo*c6 ; a thousand handkerchiefs flut 
 tered white on the pier and the flags and 
 flowers were waved on the ship, but there was 
 not a cry nor a sound. 
 
 James Perry, one of the dozen Americans on 
 board, was leaning over the rail watching it all 
 with an amused smile. " Hello, Watts ! " he 
 called, as another young man joined him. 
 "Going over? Quite dramatic, isn t it? It 
 might be a German ship going out of a Ger 
 man port. The other liners set off in as com 
 monplace a way as a Jersey City ferryboat, 
 but these North German Lloyd ships always 
 sail with a certain ceremony and solemnity. I 
 like it." 
 
 " I always cross on them," said Dr. 
 Watts. " I have but a month s vacation two 
 weeks on board ship, two on land. Now you, 
 I suppose, don t have to count your days ? 
 
You cross every year. I can t see, for my part, 
 what business the assistant editor of a maga 
 zine has abroad." 
 
 " Oh, we make a specialty of articles from 
 notorieties over there ; statesmen, scientific 
 fellows, or people with titles. I expect to 
 capture a paper from Lome and some sketches 
 by the Princess Beatrice this time." 
 
 " Lome ? It throws you into contact with 
 that sort, of folk, eh?" said the doctor, looking 
 at him enviously. " How do they strike you, 
 Jem?" 
 
 " Well," said Perry importantly, " well-bred 
 people are the same the world over. I only 
 see them in a business way, of course, but one 
 can judge. Their voices are better than ours, 
 but as to looks no ! It s queer, but Ameri 
 can women the wives and daughters of 
 saddlers or farmers, perhaps have more 
 often the patrician look than English duch 
 esses. Now there, for example," warming 
 to the subject, "that woman to whom 
 you bowed just now, the middle-aged one 
 in blue cloth. Some Mrs. Smith or Pratt, 
 probably. A homely woman, but there is a 
 distinction in her face, a certain surety of good 
 
breeding, which is lacking in the heavy-jawed 
 English royalties." 
 
 " Yes ; that is a friend of mine," said Watts. 
 " She is a Mrs. Waldeaux from Wier, in Dela 
 ware. You could hardly call her a typical 
 American woman. Old French emigrt family. 
 Probably better blood than the Coburgs a 
 few generations back. That priggish young 
 fellow is her son. Going to be an Episcopalian 
 minister." 
 
 Mr. Perry surveyed his friend s friends good- 
 humoredly. " Brand new rugs and cushions," 
 he said. " First voyage. Heavens ! I wish it 
 were my first voyage, and that I had their 
 appetite for Europe." 
 
 " You might as well ask for your relish of 
 the bread and butter of your youth," said 
 Watts. 
 
 The two men leaned lazily against the bul 
 wark watching the other passengers who were 
 squabbling about trunks. 
 
 Mr. Perry suddenly stood upright as a group 
 of women passed. 
 
 " Do you know who that girl is ? " he said 
 eagerly. " The one who looked back at us 
 over her shoulder." 
 
" No. They are only a lot of school-girls, 
 personally conducted. That is the teacher in 
 front." 
 
 " Of course, I see that. But the short, dark 
 one surely I know that woman." 
 
 The doctor looked after her. " She looks 
 like a dog turning into a human being," he 
 said leisurely. " One often sees such cases 
 of arrested evolution. D ye see ? Thick lips, 
 coarse curls, flat nostrils " 
 
 Perry laughed. " The eyes, anyhow, are 
 quite human," he said. " They challenge the 
 whole world of men. I can t place her!" 
 staring after her, perplexed. " I really don t 
 believe I ever saw her before. Yet her face 
 brings up some old story of a tragedy or crime 
 to me." 
 
 " Nonsense ! The girl is not twenty. Very 
 fetching with all her vulgarity, though. 
 Steward, send some coffee to my stateroom. 
 Let s go down, Jem. The fog is too chilly." 
 
 Frances Waldeaux did not find the fog 
 chilly. She had been thinking for thirty years 
 of the day when she should start to Europe 
 ever since she could think at all. 
 
 This was the day. It was like no other, 
 
now that it had come. The fog, the crowd, 
 the greasy smells of the pier, all familiar 
 enough yesterday, took on a certain remote 
 ness and mystery. It seemed to her that she 
 was doing something which nobody had ever 
 done before. She was going to discover the 
 Old World. 
 
 The New was not more tremendous or 
 unreal before the eyes of Columbus when he, 
 too, stood on the poop of his ship. 
 
 Her son was arguing with the deck steward 
 about chairs. 
 
 "Now, mother," he said at last, " it s all 
 right, They are under cover so that the glare 
 will not strain your eyes, and we can keep dry 
 while we watch the storms." 
 
 " How did you know about it all ? One 
 would think you had crossed a dozen times, 
 George." 
 
 " Oh, I ve studied the whole thing up 
 thoroughly," George said, with a satisfied little 
 nod- " I ve had time enough ! Why, when 
 I was in petticoats you used to tell me you 
 would buy a ship and we would sail away 
 together. You used to spoil all my school 
 map$ with red lines, drawing our routes." 
 
" Yes. And now we re going ! " said Frances 
 to herself. 
 
 He sat down beside her and they watched 
 the unending procession of passengers march 
 ing around the deck. George called her atten 
 tion by a wink to any picturesque or queer 
 figure that passed. He liked to watch her 
 quiet brown eyes gleam with fun. Nobody 
 had such a keen sense of the ridiculous as his 
 mother. Sometimes, at the mere remembrance 
 of some absurd idea, she would go off into soft 
 silent paroxysms of laughter until the tears 
 would stream down her cheeks. 
 
 George was fond and proud of his childish 
 little mother. He had never known any body, 
 he thought, so young or so transparent. It 
 was easily understood. She had married at 
 sixteen, and had been left a widow little more 
 than a year afterward. "And I," he used to 
 think, " was born with an old head on my 
 shoulders ; so we have grown up together. I 
 suppose the dear soul never had a thought in 
 her life which she has not told me." 
 
 As they sat together a steward brought Mrs. 
 Waldeaux a note, which she read, blushing 
 and smiling. 
 
" The captain invites us to sit at his table," 
 she said, when the man was gone. 
 
 " Very proper in the captain," said George 
 complacently. "You see, Madam Waldeaux, 
 even the men who go down in ships have 
 heard of you and your family ! " 
 
 " I don t believe the captain ever heard of 
 me," she said, after a grave consideration, " nor 
 of the Waldeaux. It is much more likely that 
 he has read your article in the Quarterly, 
 George." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " But he stiffened himself up 
 consciously. 
 
 He had sent a paper on some abstruse point 
 of sociology to the Quarterly last spring, and 
 it had aroused quite a little buzz of criticism. 
 His mother had regarded it very much as the 
 Duchess of Kent did the crown when it was 
 set upon her little girl s head. She always had 
 known that her child was born to reign, but 
 it was satisfactory to see this visible sign 
 of it. 
 
 She whispered now, eagerly leaning over to 
 him. " There was something about that paper 
 which I never told you. I think I ll tell you 
 now that the great day has come." 
 
" Well ? " 
 
 " Why, you know I never think of you as 
 my son, or a man, or anything outside of me 
 not at all. You are just me, doing the things 
 I should have done if I had not been a woman. 
 Well," she drew her breath quickly, " when 
 
 I was a girl it seemed as if there was some 
 thing in me that I must say, so I tried to 
 write poems. No, I never told you before. 
 It had counted for so much to me I could not 
 talk of it. I always sent them to the paper 
 anonymously, signed Sidney. Oh, it was 
 long long ago ! I ve been dumb, as you 
 might say, for years. But when I read your 
 article, George do you know if I had written 
 it I should have used just the phrases you 
 did ? And you signed it Sidney ! " She 
 watched him breathlessly. " That was more 
 than a coincidence, don t you think ? I am 
 dumb, but you speak for me now. It is 
 because we are just one. Don t you think so, 
 George ? " She held his arm tightly. 
 
 Young Waldeaux burst into a loud laugh. 
 Then he took her hand in his, stroking it. 
 
 II You dear little woman ! What do you know 
 of sociology?" he said, and then walked away 
 
10 
 
 to hide his amusement, muttering " Poems ? 
 Great Heavens ! " 
 
 Frances looked after him steadily. " Oh, 
 well ! " she said to herself presently. 
 
 She forced her mind back to the Quarterly 
 article. It was a beginning of just the kind of 
 triumph that she always had expected for him. 
 He would soon be recognized by scientific men 
 all over the world as their confrere, especially 
 after his year s study at Oxford. 
 
 When George was in his cradle she had 
 planned that he should be a clergyman, just as 
 she had planned that he should be a well-bred 
 man, and she had fitted him for both roles in life, 
 and urged him into them by the same unceas 
 ing soft pats and pushes. She would be de 
 lighted when she saw him in white robes serving 
 at the altar. 
 
 Not that Frances had ever taken her religion 
 quite seriously. It was like her gowns, or her 
 education, a matter of course ; a trustworthy, 
 agreeable part of her. She had never once in 
 her life shuddered at a glimpse of any vice in 
 herself, or cried to God in agony, even to grant 
 her a wish. 
 
 But she knew that Robert Waldeaux s son 
 
II 
 
 would be safer in the pulpit. He could take 
 rank with scholars there, too. 
 
 She inspected him now anxiously, trying to 
 see him with the eyes of these Oxford mag 
 nates. Nobody would guess that he was only 
 twenty-two. The bald spot on his crown and 
 the spectacles gave him a scholastic air, and the 
 finely cut features and a cold aloofness in his 
 manner spoke plainly, she thought, of his 
 good descent and high pursuits. 
 
 Frances herself had a drop of vagabond 
 blood which found comrades for her among 
 every class and color. But there was not an 
 atom of the tramp in her son s well-built 
 and fashionably clothed body. He never had 
 had a single intimate friend even when he was 
 a boy. " He will probably find his companions 
 among the great English scholars," she thought 
 complacently. Of course she would always be 
 his only comrade, his chum. She continually 
 met and parted with thousands of people 
 they came and went. " But George and I will 
 be together for all time," she told herself. 
 
 He came up presently and sat down be 
 side her, with an anxious, apologetic air. It 
 hurt him to think that he had laughed at her. 
 
12 
 
 " That dark haze is the Jersey shore," he said. 
 " How dim it grows ! Well, we are really out 
 now in the big world ! It is so good to be 
 alone there with you," he added, touching her 
 arm affectionately. "Those cynical old-men- 
 boys at Harvard bored me." 
 
 " I don t bore you, then, George? " 
 " You ! " He was very anxious to make her 
 forget his roughness. " Apart from my affec 
 tion for you, mother," he said judicially, " I 
 like you. I approve of you as I never proba 
 bly shall approve of another woman. Your 
 peculiarities the way your brown hair ripples 
 back into that knot " surveying her critically. 
 " And the way you always look as if you had 
 just come out of a bath, even on a grimy train ; 
 and your gowns, so simple and rich. I con 
 fess," he said gravely, " I can t always follow 
 your unsteady little ideas when you talk. They 
 frisk about so. It is the difference probably 
 between the man s mind and the woman s. 
 Besides, we have been separated for so many 
 years ! But I soon will understand you. I 
 know that while you keep yourself apart from 
 all the world you open your heart to me." 
 "Wrap the rug about my feet, George," she 
 
said hastily, and then sent him away upon an 
 errand, looking after him uneasily. 
 
 It was very pleasant to hear her boy thus 
 formally sum up his opinion of her. But when 
 he found that it was based upon a lie ? 
 
 For Frances, candid enough to the world, 
 had deceived her son ever since he was 
 born. 
 
 George had always believed that she had 
 inherited a fortune from his father. It gave 
 solidity and comfort to his life to think of her 
 in the stately old mansion on the shores of 
 Delaware Bay, with nothing to do except to 
 be beautiful and gracious, as befitted a well 
 born woman. It pleased him, in a lofty, gener 
 ous way, that his father (whom she had taught 
 him to reverence as the most chivalric of 
 gentlemen) had left him wholly dependent 
 upon her. It was a legal fiction, of course. 
 He was the heir the crown prince. He had 
 always been liberally supplied with money at 
 school and at Harvard. Her income was large. 
 No doubt the dear soul mismanaged the 
 estates fearfully, but now he would have leisure 
 to take care of them. 
 
 Now, the fact was that Colonel Waldeaux 
 
had been a drunken spendthrift who had left 
 nothing. The house and farm always had 
 belonged to his wife. She had supported 
 George by her own work all of his life. She 
 could not save money, but she had the rarer 
 faculty of making it. She had raised fine fruit 
 and flowers for the Philadelphia market ; she 
 had traded in high breeds of poultry and 
 cattle, and had invested her earnings shrewdly. 
 With these successes she had been able to pro 
 vide George with money to spend freely at 
 college. She lived scantily at home, never ex 
 pecting any luxury or great pleasure to come 
 into her own life. 
 
 But two years ago a queer thing had hap 
 pened to her. In an idle hour she wrote a 
 comical squib and sent it to a New York paper. 
 As everybody knows, fun, even vulgar fun, 
 sells high in the market. Her fun was not 
 vulgar, but coarse and biting enough to tickle 
 the ears of the common reader. The editor 
 offered her a salary equal to her whole income 
 for a weekly column of such fooling. 
 
 She had hoarded every penny of this money. 
 With it she meant to pay her expenses in 
 Europe and to support George in his year at 
 
15 
 
 Oxford. The work and the salary were to go 
 on while she was gone. 
 
 It was easy enough to hide all of these 
 things from her son while he was in Cam 
 bridge and she in Delaware. But now? What 
 if he should find out that his mother was the 
 
 " Q u igg " f th e New York , a paper 
 
 which he declared to be unfit for a gentleman 
 to read ? 
 
 She was looking out to sea and thinking of 
 this when her cousin, Miss Vance, came up to 
 her. Miss Vance was a fashionable teacher in 
 New York, who was going to spend a year 
 abroad with two wealthy pupils. She was 
 a thin woman, quietly dressed ; white hair 
 and black brows, with gold eye-glasses bridg 
 ing an aquiline nose, gave her a commanding, 
 inquisitorial air. 
 
 " Well, Frances ! " she began briskly, " I 
 have not had time before to attend to you. 
 Are your bags hung in your stateroom ? " 
 
 " I haven t been down yet," said Mrs. Wal- 
 deaux meekly. " We were watching the fog 
 in the sun." 
 
 " Fog ! Mercy on me ! You know you 
 may be ill any minute, and your room not 
 
16 
 
 ready! Of course, you did not take the 
 bromides that I sent you a week ago ? " 
 
 " No, Clara." 
 
 Miss Vance glanced at her. " Well, just as 
 you please. I ve done what I could. Let me 
 look at your itinerary. You will be too ill for 
 me to advise you about it later." 
 
 " Oh, we made none ! " said George gayly, 
 coming up to his mother s aid. " We are 
 going to be vagabonds, and have no plans. 
 Mother s soul draws us to York Cathedral, 
 and mine to the National Gallery. That is all 
 we know." 
 
 " I thought you had given up that whim of 
 being an artist ? " said Miss Vance, sharply 
 facing on him. 
 
 Young Waldeaux reddened. " Yes, I have 
 given it up. I know as well as you do that I 
 have no talent. I am going to study my pro 
 fession at Oxford, and earn rrry bread by it." 
 
 " Quite right. You never would earn it by 
 art," she said decisively. " How long do you 
 stay in York, Frances ? " 
 
 " Oh, a day, or a month or years, as we 
 please," said Frances, lazily turning her head 
 away. She wanted to set Clara Vance down 
 
in her proper place. Mrs. Waldeaux ab 
 horred cousinly intimates people who run 
 into your back door to pry into the state of 
 your larder or your income. But Miss Vance, 
 as Frances knew, unfortunately held a key to 
 her back door. She knew of George s wretched 
 daubs, and his insane desire, when he was a 
 boy, to study art. He gave it up years ago. 
 Why should she nag him now about it? By 
 virtue of her relationship she knew, too, all of 
 Mrs. Waldeaux s secrets. It was most unfor 
 tunate that she should have chosen to sail on 
 this vessel. 
 
 " Well, mother," George said, uneasy to get 
 away, " no doubt Miss Vance is right. We 
 should set things in order. I am going now 
 to give my letter of credit to the purser to 
 lock up ; shall I take yours ? " 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux did not reply at once. 
 " No," she said at last. " I like to carry my 
 own purse." 
 
 He smiled indulgently as on a child. " Of 
 course, dear. It is your own. My father was 
 wise in that. But, on this journey, I can act 
 as your paymaster, can t I ? I have studied 
 foreign money " 
 
i8 
 
 " We shall see. I can keep it as safe as any 
 purser now," she said, obstinately shaking her 
 head. 
 
 He laughed and walked away. 
 
 " You have not told him, then ? " demanded 
 Clara. 
 
 "No. And I never will. I will not hurt 
 the boy by letting him know that his mother 
 has supported him, and remember, Clara, that 
 he can only hear it through you. Nobody 
 knows that I am Quigg but you." 
 
 Miss Vance lifted her eyebrows. " Nothing 
 can need a lie," she quoted calmly. Presently 
 she said earnestly, " Frances, you are making 
 a mistake. Somebody ought to tell you the 
 truth. There is no reason why your whole 
 being should be buried in that man. He 
 should stand on his own feet, now. You can 
 be all that he needs as a mother, and yet live 
 out your own life. It is broader than his 
 will ever be. At your age, and with your 
 capabilities, you should marry again. Think 
 of the many long years that are before you." 
 
 " I have thought of them," said Mrs. Wal- 
 deaux slowly. " I have had lovers who came 
 close to me as friends, but I never for a 
 
moment was tempted to marry one of them. 
 No, Clara. When the devil drove my father 
 to hand me over innocent child as I was to a 
 man like Robert Waldeaux, he killed in me the 
 capacity for that kind of love. It is not in 
 me." She turned her strenuous face to the 
 sea and was silent. " It is not in me," she 
 repeated after a while. " I have but one feel 
 ing, and that is for my boy. It is growing on 
 me absurdly, too." She laughed nervously. 
 " I used to be conscious of other people in the 
 world, but now, if I see a boy or man, I see 
 only what George was or will be at his age ; if 
 I read a book, it only suggests what George 
 will say of it. I am like one of those plants 
 that have lost their own sap and color, and 
 suck in their life from another. It scares me 
 sometimes." 
 
 Miss Vance smiled with polite contempt. 
 No doubt Frances had a shrewd business 
 faculty, but in other matters she was not ten 
 years old. 
 
 "And George will marry some time," she 
 said curtly. 
 
 " Oh, I hope so ! And soon. Then I shall 
 have a daughter. I know just the kind of a 
 
20 
 
 wife George will choose," she chattered on 
 eagerly. " I understand him so thoroughly 
 that I can understand her. But where could 
 he find her ? He is so absurdly fastidious ! " 
 
 Miss Vance was silent and thoughtful- a 
 moment. Then she came closer. " I will tell 
 you where to find her," she said, in a low voice. 
 " I have thought of it for a long time. It 
 seems to me that Providence actually made 
 Lucy Dunbar for George." 
 
 " Really ? " Mrs. Waldeaux drew herself up 
 stiffly. 
 
 " Wait, Frances. Lucy has been with me 
 for three years. I know her. She is a sincere, 
 modest, happy little thing. Not too clever. 
 She is an heiress, too. And her family is 
 good ; and all underground, which is another 
 advantage. You can mould her as you choose. 
 She loves you already." 
 
 " Or is it that she ? " 
 
 " You have no right to ask that ! " said Miss 
 Vance quickly. 
 
 " No, I am ashamed of myself." Mrs. Wal 
 deaux reddened. 
 
 A group of girls came up the deck. Both 
 women scanned the foremost one critically. 
 
21 
 
 " I like that wholesome, candid look of her," 
 said Miss Vance. 
 
 " Oh, she is well enough," said Frances. 
 " But I am sure George does not like yellow 
 hair. Nothing but an absolutely beautiful 
 woman will attract him." 
 
 " An artist," said Miss Vance hastily, " would 
 tell you her features were perfect. And her 
 flesh tints " 
 
 " For Heaven s sake, Clara, don t dissect the 
 child. Who is that girl with the red cravat ? 
 Your maid? " 
 
 " It is not a cravat, it s an Indian scarf. If 
 
 it only were clean " Miss Vance looked 
 
 uneasy and perplexed. " She is not my maid. 
 She is Fraulein Arpent. The Ewalts brought 
 her as governess from Paris, don t you remem 
 ber? They sent the girls to Bryn Mawr last 
 week and turned her adrift, almost penniless. 
 She wished to go back to France. I engaged 
 her as assistant chaperone for the season." 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux s eyebrows went up signifi 
 cantly. She never commented in words on the 
 affairs of others, but her face always was indis 
 creet. George, who had come up in time to 
 hear the last words, was not so scrupulous. 
 
22 
 
 He surveyed the young woman through his 
 spectacles as she passed again, with cold dis 
 approval. 
 
 " French or German ? " he asked. 
 
 " I really don t know. She has a singular 
 facility in tongues," said Miss Vance. 
 
 " Well, that is not the companion 7 should 
 have chosen for those innocent little girls," he 
 said authoritatively, glad to be disagreeable to 
 his cousin. " She looks like a hawk among 
 doves." 
 
 " The woman is harmless enough," said Miss 
 Vance tartly. " She speaks exquisite French." 
 
 "But what does she say in it? " persisted 
 George. " She is vulgar from her red pompon 
 to her boots. She has the swagger of a sou- 
 brette and she has left 9. trail of perfume be 
 hind her pah ! I confess I am surprised at 
 you, Miss Vance. You do not often slip in 
 your judgment." 
 
 " Don t make yourself unpleasant, George," 
 said his mother gently. Miss Vance smiled 
 icily, and as the girls came near again, stopped 
 them and stood talking to Mile. Arpent with 
 an aggressive show of familiarity. 
 
 " Why do you worry Clara ? " said Mrs. 
 
Waldeaux. " She knows she has made a mis 
 take. What do you think of that little blonde 
 girl?" she asked presently, watching him 
 anxiously. " She has remarkable beauty, 
 certainly; but there is something finical 
 precise " 
 
 " Take care. She will hear you," said 
 George. " Beauty, eh ? Oh, I don t know," 
 indifferently. " She is passably pretty. I 
 have never seen a woman yet whose beauty 
 satisfied me" 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux leaned back with a comfort 
 able little laugh. " But you must not be so 
 hard to please, my son. You must bring me 
 my daughter soon," she said. 
 
 " Not very soon. I have some thing else 
 to think of than marriage for the next ten 
 years." 
 
 Just then Dr. Watts came up and asked 
 leave to present his friend Perry. The doctor, 
 like all young men who knew Mrs. Waldeaux, 
 had succumbed to her peculiar charm, which 
 was only that of a woman past her youth who 
 had strong personal magnetism and not a 
 spark of coquetry. George s friends all were 
 sure that they would fall in love with a woman 
 
2 4 
 
 just like her but not a man of them ever 
 thought of falling in love with her. 
 
 Young Perry, in twenty minutes, decided 
 that she was the most brilliant and agreeable 
 of companions. He had talked, and she had 
 spoken only with her listening, sympathetic 
 eyes. He was always apt to be voluble. On 
 this occasion he was too voluble. 
 
 " You are from Weir, I think, in Delaware, 
 Mrs. Waldeaux?" he asked. "I must have 
 seen the name of the town with yours on 
 the list of passengers, for the story of a 
 woman who once lived there has been haunt 
 ing me all day. I have not seen nor thought 
 of her for years, and I could not account for 
 my sudden remembrance of her." 
 
 " Who was she ? " asked George, trying to 
 save his mother from Perry, who threatened 
 to be a bore. 
 
 " Her name was Pauline Felix. You have 
 heard her story, Mrs. Waldeaux ? " 
 
 " Yes " said Frances coldly. " I have heard 
 her story. Can you find my shawl, George ? " 
 
 But Perry was conscious of no rebuff, and 
 turned cheerfully to George. " It was one of 
 those dramas of real life, too unlikely to put 
 
into a novel. She was the daughter of a poor 
 clergyman in Weir, a devout, good man, I 
 believe. She had marvellous beauty and a dev 
 ilish disposition. She ran away, lived a wild 
 life in Paris, and became the mistress of a Rus 
 sian Grand Duke. Her death " 
 
 He could not have told why he stopped. 
 Mrs. Waldeaux still watched him, attentive, 
 but the sympathetic smile had frozen into icy 
 civility. She had the old-fashioned modesty 
 of her generation. What right had this young 
 man to speak of " mistresses " to her? Clara s 
 girls within hearing too ! She rose when he 
 paused, bowed, and hurried to them, like a hen 
 fluttering to protect her chicks. 
 
 " He was talking to me of a woman," she 
 said excitedly to Clara, "who is never men 
 tioned by decent people." 
 
 " Yes, I heard him," said Miss Vance. " Poor 
 Pauline ! Her career was always a mystery to 
 me. I was at school with her, and she was the 
 most generous, lovable girl ! Yet she came to 
 a wretched end," turning to her flock, her tone 
 growing didactic. " One is never safe, you 
 see. One must always be on guard." 
 
 " Oh, my dear ! " cried Frances impatiently. 
 
26 
 
 " You surely don t mean to class these girls 
 and me with Pauline Felix ! Come, come ! " 
 
 " None of us is safe," repeated Clara stiffly. 
 " Somebody says there is a possible vice in the 
 purest soul, and it may lie perdu there until 
 old age. But it will break out some day." 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux looked, laughing, at the 
 eager, blushing faces around her. " It is not 
 likely to break out in us, girls, eh ! Really, 
 Clara," she said, in a lower tone, " that seems 
 to me like wasted morality. Women of our 
 class are in no more danger of temptation to 
 commit great crimes than they are of finding 
 tigers in their drawing-rooms. Pauline Felix 
 was born vicious. No woman could fall as she 
 did, who was not rotten to the core." 
 
 A sudden shrill laugh burst from the French 
 woman, who had been looking at Mrs. Wal 
 deaux with insolent, bold eyes. But as she 
 laughed, her head fell forward and she swung 
 from side to side. 
 
 "It is nothing," she cried, "I am only a 
 little faint. I must go below." 
 
 The ship was now crossing short, choppy 
 waves. The passengers scattered rapidly. 
 George took his mother to her stateroom, and 
 
there she stayed until land was sighted on 
 the Irish coast. Clara and her companions 
 also were forced to keep to their berths. 
 
 During the speechless misery of the first 
 days Mrs. Waldeaux was conscious that George 
 was hanging over her, tender as a mother with 
 a baby. She commanded him to stay on 
 deck, for each day she saw that he, too, grew 
 more haggard. " Let me fight it out alone," 
 she would beg of him. " My worst trouble is 
 that I cannot take care of you." 
 
 He obeyed her at last, and would come 
 down but once during the day, and then for 
 only a few hurried minutes. His mother was 
 alarmed at the ghastliness of his face and the 
 expression of anxious wretchedness new to it. 
 " His eye avoids mine craftily, like that of an 
 insane man," she told herself, and when the 
 doctor came, she asked him whether sea-sick 
 ness affected the brain. 
 
 On the last day of the voyage the breeze 
 was from land, and with the first breath of it 
 Frances found her vigor suddenly return. 
 She rose and dressed herself. George had not 
 been near her that day. " He must be very 
 ill," she thought, and hurried out. " Is Mr. 
 
28 
 
 Waldeaux in his stateroom ? " she asked the 
 steward. 
 
 ^No, madam. He is on deck. All the pas 
 sengers are on deck," the man added, smiling. 
 " Land is in sight." 
 
 Land ! And George had not come to tell 
 her ! He must be desperately ill ! 
 
 She groped up the steps, holding by the 
 brass rail. " I will give him a fine surprise ! " 
 she said to herself. " I can take care of him, 
 now. To-night we shall be on shore and this 
 misery all over. And then the great joy will 
 begin ! " 
 
 She came out on deck. The sunshine and 
 cold pure wind met her. She looked along 
 the crowded deck for her invalid. Every- 
 body was in holiday clothes, every-body was 
 smiling and talking at once. Ah ! there 
 he was! 
 
 He was leaning over Frances steamer chair, 
 on which a woman lay indolently. He was in 
 rude health, laughing, his face flushed, his 
 eyes sparkling. 
 
 Looking up, he saw his mother and came 
 hastily to meet her. The laugh was gone. 
 11 So you came up ? " he said impatiently. " I 
 
i 
 
2 9 
 
 would have called you in time. I 
 
 Mother ! " He caught her by the arm. " Wait, 
 I must see you alone for a minute." Urged 
 by the amazed fright in her face, he went on 
 desperately, " I have something to tell you. I 
 intended to break it to you. I don t want to 
 hurt you, God knows. But I have not been 
 idle in these days. I have found your daughter. 
 She is here." 
 
 He led her up to the chair. The girl s head 
 was wrapped in a veil and turned from her. 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux held out her hands. " Lucy ! 
 Lucy Dunbar ! " she heard herself say. 
 
 "Mais non ! C est moi ! " said a shrill voice, 
 and Mile. Arpent, turning her head lazily, 
 looked at her, smiling. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 CLARA VANCE had her faults, but nobody 
 could deny that, in this crisis, she acted with 
 feeling and tact. She ignored mademoiselle 
 and her lover, whose bliss was in evidence on 
 deck all day, and took possession of Mrs. 
 Waldeaux, caring for her as tenderly as if she 
 had been some poor wretch sentenced to 
 death. " She has no intellect left except her 
 ideas about George," she told herself, " and if 
 
 he turns his back on her for life in this way 
 
 She never was too sane ! " shaking her head 
 ominously. 
 
 She thought it best to talk frankly of the 
 matter to little Lucy Dunbar, and was relieved 
 to find her ready to joke and laugh at it. 
 " No bruise in that tender heart ! " thought 
 Clara, who was anxious as a mother for her 
 girls. 
 
 " We all worshipped Mr. George," said Lucy 
 saucily. " I, most of all. He is so cold, so 
 exalted and ah h, so good-looking ! Like a 
 
Greek god. But he never gave a look to poor 
 little me ! The fraulein came on deck as 
 soon as we all went down with sea-sickness, 
 and bewitched him with her eyes. It must 
 have been her eyes ; they are yellow witch s 
 eyes. Or maybe that cheap smell about her 
 is a love-philter ! Or was it just soul calling 
 to soul ? I should have said the fraulein had 
 the soul of a milliner. She put great ideas 
 into the hat that she altered for me," Lucy 
 added, with an unsteady laugh. 
 
 " I care nothing for them or their souls," 
 said Miss Vance crossly. " It is his mother 
 that I think of." 
 
 " But really," said Lucy, " mademoiselle is 
 quite raw material. No ideas no manners 
 whatever. Mrs. Waldeaux may mould her into 
 something good and fine." 
 
 " She will not try. She will never accept 
 that creature as a daughter." 
 
 " She seems to me to be indifferent," said 
 Lucy. " She does not see how terrible it is. 
 She was leaning over the bulwark just now, 
 laughing at the queer gossoons selling their 
 shillalahs." 
 
 " Oh, she will laugh at Death himself 
 
when he comes to fetch her, and see some 
 thing * queer in him," said Clara. 
 
 But her little confidence with Lucy had 
 relieved her. The child cared nothing for 
 George, that was plain. 
 
 Mademoiselle, watching Mrs. Waldeaux 
 closely all day, was not deceived by her laugh. 
 " The old lady, your mother," she said to 
 George, " is what you men call game. She 
 has blood and breeding. More than you, mon 
 sieur. That keeps her up. I did not count 
 on that," said the young woman thoughtfully. 
 
 George took off his glasses and rubbed them 
 nervously as he talked. " I don t understand 
 my mother at all ! She has always been very 
 considerate and kind. I never thought that 
 she would receive my wife, when I brought her 
 to her, with calm civility. Not a kiss nor a 
 blessing ! " 
 
 "A kiss? A blessing for me?" Lisa 
 laughed and nodded meaningly to the sea and 
 world at large. " She could hardly have 
 blessed a woman lolling full length in her 
 chair," she thought. " It is her chair. And I 
 have unseated her for life ! " curling herself 
 up in the rugs. 
 
33 
 
 Yet she had a twinge of pity for the old 
 lady. Even the wild boar has its affections 
 and moments of gentleness. A week ago Lisa 
 could have trampled the life out of this woman 
 who had slandered her dead mother, with the 
 fury of any wild beast. 
 
 For she. was Pauline Felix s daughter. It was 
 her mother s name that Mrs. Waldeaux had 
 said could not be spoken by any decent woman. 
 Lisa had been but a child, but she had held 
 her mother s head close to her stout little heart 
 as she lay dying that awful mysterious death 
 of which the young man had tried to make a 
 telling story. The girl crossed herself now 
 and closed her tired eyes as she thought of it. 
 She had been a wicked child and a wicked 
 woman, but she knew certainly that the 
 Virgin and her Son had come near to her that 
 day, and had helped her. 
 
 George, who was poring fondly on her face, 
 exclaimed : " Your eyes are wet. You are in 
 trouble ! " 
 
 "I was thinking of my mother," she said 
 gently, holding out her hand to him. 
 
 He took it and said presently, " Will you 
 not talk to me about her, Lisa? You have 
 3 
 
34 
 
 not told me any thing of your people, my 
 darling. Nor of yourself. Why, I don t even 
 know whether you are French or German." 
 
 " Oh, you shall hear the whole story when 
 we are married," she replied softly, a wicked 
 glitter in her eyes. " Some of the noblest 
 blood in Europe is in my veins. I will give 
 you my genealogical tree to hang up in that 
 old homestead of yours. It will interest the 
 people of Weir and please your mother." 
 
 " It is good in you to think of her," he said, 
 tenderly looking down at her. 
 
 He was not blind. He saw the muddy skin, 
 the thick lips, the soiled, ragged lace. They 
 would have disgusted him in another woman. 
 
 But this was Lisa. There was no more to 
 be said. 
 
 These outside trifles would fall off when she 
 came into his life. Even with them she was 
 the breath and soul of it. 
 
 She saw the difference between them more 
 sharply than he did. She had been cast for a 
 low part in the play, and knew it. Sometimes 
 she had earned the food which kept her alive 
 in ways of which this untempted young priest 
 had never even heard. There was something 
 
35 
 
 in this clean past of his, in his cold patrician 
 face and luxurious habits new to her, and she 
 had a greedy relish for it all. 
 
 She had been loved before, caressed as men 
 caress a dog, kicking it off when it becomes 
 troublesome. George s boyish shyness, his 
 reverent awe of her, startled her. 
 
 "He thinks Lisa Arpent a jeune fille like 
 these others. A little white rose ! " she thought, 
 and laughed. She would not tell him why 
 she laughed, and muttered an oath when he 
 stupidly insisted on knowing. 
 
 He was the first lover who had ever believed 
 in her. 
 
 She had begun this affair simply to punish 
 the " old woman "; the man in it had counted 
 for nothing. But now, as they crossed the 
 gangway, she looked up at him with eyes that 
 for the moment were honest and true as a 
 child s, and her firm hand suddenly trembled 
 in his. 
 
 Three weeks later Mrs. Waldeaux came into 
 Miss Vance s little parlor on Half Moon Street. 
 Her face was red from the wind, her eyes 
 sparkled, and she hummed some gay air which 
 
an organ ground outside. Clara laid down her 
 pen. 
 
 "Where have you been, Frances? It is a 
 week since I saw you." 
 
 " Oh, everywhere ! George has been show 
 ing me London ! " She sat down before the 
 fire with a gurgle of comfort and dropped her 
 bonnet and gloves on the floor beside her. 
 " Yesterday we spent at the Museum. George 
 explained the Elgin marbles to me. I don t 
 suppose any body in London has studied their 
 history so thoroughly. I did wish you could 
 have heard him. And the day before I was at 
 the House in the ladies gallery. I can t 
 imagine how he got admission for me. He is 
 so clever ! " 
 
 " We are going down to Canterbury for a 
 couple of days, " said Clara. " We start at 
 noon. Will you go with us?" 
 
 " No, I think not. George does not seem to 
 care for cathedrals. And he has plans for me, 
 no doubt." 
 
 Miss Vance brushed the bonnet and carefully 
 rolled up the strings. " Are you satisfied ? Is 
 London the London you have been thinking of 
 these twenty years ?" she asked. 
 
37 
 
 " Oh, a thousand times more ! And George 
 has been with me every day every day ! " 
 
 Miss Vance picked up the gloves, looking 
 impatiently at the poor lady s happy face. 
 " Now she has gone off into one of her silly 
 transports of delight, and for no earthly 
 reason ! " 
 
 " I noticed that George has seen very little 
 of Lisa lately," she said tentatively. " If he 
 really means to marry her " 
 
 " Marry her ! Clara ! You surely never 
 feared that f " 
 
 " He certainly told us plainly enough that 
 he would do it," said Miss Vance testily. 
 
 11 Oh, you don t understand him ! You have 
 had so little to do with young men. They are 
 all liable to attacks like that as to measles 
 and scarlet fever. But they pass off. Now, 
 George is not as susceptible as most of them. 
 But," lowering her voice, " he was madly in 
 love with the butcher s Kate when he was ten, 
 and five years afterward offered to marry the 
 widow Potts. I thought he had outgrown the 
 disease. There has been nothing of the kind 
 since, until this fancy. It is passing off. Of 
 course it is mortifying enough to think that 
 
such a poor creature as that could attract him 
 for an hour." 
 
 " I was to blame/ Miss Vance said, with an 
 effort. " I brought her in his way. But how 
 was I to know that she was such a cat, and he 
 such If he should marry her " 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux laughed angrily. " You are 
 too absurd, Clara. A flirtation with such a 
 woman was degrading enough, but George is 
 not quite mad. He has not even spoken of 
 her for days. Oh, here he comes ! That is 
 his step on the stairs." She ran to the door. 
 " He found that I was out and has followed 
 me. He is the most ridiculous mother s boy ! 
 Well, George, here I am ! Have you thought 
 of something new for me to see ? " She glanced 
 at Miss Vance, well pleased that she should 
 see the lad s foolish fondness for her. 
 
 George forced a smile. He looked worn 
 and jaded. Miss Vance noticed that his 
 usually neat cravat was awry and his hands 
 were gloveless. "Yes," he said. "It is a lit 
 tle church. The oldest in London. I want 
 to show it to you." 
 
 Miss Vance tied on Mrs. Waldeaux s bonnet, 
 smoothing her hair affectionately. " There 
 
39 
 
 are too many gray hairs here for your age, 
 Frances," she said. " George, you should keep 
 your mother from worry and work. Don t let 
 her hair grow gray so soon." 
 
 George bowed. " I hope I shall do my 
 duty," he said, with dignity. " Come, mother." 
 
 As they drove down Piccadilly Mrs. Wal- 
 deaux chattered eagerly to her son. She could 
 not pour out her teeming fancies about this 
 new world to any body else, but she could not 
 talk fast enough to him. Had they not both 
 been waiting for a lifetime to see this London? 
 
 " The thing," she said earnestly, as she set 
 tled herself beside him, " the thing that has 
 impressed me most, I think, were those great 
 Ninevite gods yesterday. I sat for hours be 
 fore them while you were gone. There they 
 sit, their hands on their knees, and stare out 
 of their awful silence at the London fog, just 
 as they stared at the desert before Christ was 
 born. I felt so miserably young and sham ! " 
 
 George adjusted his cravat impatiently. 
 " I m afraid I don t quite follow you, mother. 
 
 These little flights of yours They belong 
 
 to your generation, I suppose. It was a more 
 sentimental one than mine. You are not very 
 
40 
 
 young. And you certainly are not a sham. 
 The statues are interesting, but I fail to see 
 why they should have had such an effect 
 upon you." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Frances. " But you did not stay 
 alone with them as long as I did, or you would 
 have felt it too. Now I am sure that the de 
 bates in Parliament impressed you just as they 
 did me?" 
 
 George said nothing, but she went on eagerly. 
 It never occurred to her that he could be 
 bored by her impressions in these greatest 
 days of her life. " To see a half-dozen well- 
 groomed young men settle the affairs of India 
 and Australia in a short, indifferent colloquy ! 
 How shy and awkward they were, too ! They 
 actually stuttered out their sentences in their 
 fear of posing or seeming pretentious. So 
 English ! Don t you think it was very Eng 
 lish, George?" 
 
 " I really did not f%ink about it at all. 
 I have had very different things to occupy 
 me," said George, coldly superior ;to all 
 mothers and Parliaments. " This is the 
 church." 
 
 The cab stopped before an iron door between 
 
two shops in the most thronged part of Bish- 
 opsgate Street. He pushed it open, and they 
 passed suddenly out of the hurrying crowd 
 into the solemn silence of an ancient dingy 
 building. A dim light fell through a noble 
 window of the thirteenth century upon cheap 
 wooden pews. The church was empty, and 
 had that curious significance and half-spoken 
 message of its own which belongs to a vacant 
 house. 
 
 " I remember," whispered Frances, awe 
 struck. " This was built by the first Christian 
 convert, St. Ethelburga." 
 
 " You believe every thing, mother ! " said 
 George irritably. 
 
 She wandered about, looking at the sombre 
 walls and inscriptions, and then back uneasily, 
 to his moody face. 
 
 Suddenly she came up to him as he stood 
 leaning against a pillar. " Something has 
 happened ! " she saitf. " You did not bring 
 me here to look at the church. You have 
 something to tell me." 
 
 The young man looked at her and turned 
 away. "Yes, I have. It isn t a death," he 
 said, with a nervous laugh. "You need not 
 
4 2 
 
 look in that way. It is something very dif 
 ferent. I I was married in this church 
 yesterday to Lisa Arpent." 
 
 Frances did not at first comprehend the 
 great disaster that bulked black across her 
 whole life, but, woman-like, grasped at a frag 
 ment of it. 
 
 " You were married and I was not there ! 
 Yesterday ! My boy was married and he for 
 got me ! " 
 
 " Mother ! Don t look like that ! Here, sit 
 down," grabbing her helplessly by the arms. 
 " I didn t want to hurt you. I brought you 
 here to tell you quietly. Cry! Why don t 
 you cry if you re worried ! Oh ! I believe 
 she s dying ! " he shouted, staring around the 
 empty church. 
 
 She spoke at last. 
 
 " You were married and I couldn t say God 
 bless you ! You forgot me ! I never forgot 
 you, George, for one minute since you were 
 born." 
 
 "Mother, what fool talk is that? I only 
 didn t want a scene. I kept away from Lisa 
 for weeks so as not to vex you. Forget you ! 
 I think I have been very considerate of you 
 
43 
 
 under the circumstances. You have a dislike 
 to Lisa, a most groundless dislike " 
 
 " Oh, what is Lisa ? " said Frances haughtily. 
 " It is that you have turned away from me. 
 She has nothing to do with the relation 
 between you and me. How can any woman 
 come between me and my son? " She held up 
 her hands. " Why, you are my boy, Georgy. 
 You are all I have ! " 
 
 He looked at the face, curiously pinched 
 and drawn as if by death, that was turned up 
 to his, and shrugged his shoulders impatiently. 
 " Now this is exactly what I tried to escape 
 yesterday. Am I never to be a man, nor have 
 the rights of a man? You must accept the 
 situation, mother. Lisa is my wife, and dearer 
 to me than all the world beside." 
 
 He saw her lips move. "Dearer? Dearer 
 than me ! " 
 
 She sat quite still after that, and did not 
 seem to hear when he spoke. Something in 
 her silence frightened him. She certainly had 
 been a fond, indulgent mother, and he perhaps 
 had been abrupt in cutting the tie between 
 them. It must be cut. He had promised 
 Lisa the whole matter should be settled to-day. 
 
44 
 
 But his mother certainly was a weak woman, 
 and he must be patient with her. Secretly 
 he approved the manliness of his patience. 
 
 "The cab is waiting, dear," he said. She 
 rose and walked to the street, standing helpless 
 there while the crowd jostled her. Was she 
 blind and deaf? He put her into the cab and 
 sat down opposite to her. " Half Moon 
 Street," he called to the driver. 
 
 " Mother," touching her on the knee. 
 
 " Yes, George." 
 
 " I told him to drive to Half Moon Street. 
 I will take you to Clara Vance. We may as 
 well arrange things now, finally. You do not 
 like my wife. That is clear. For the present, 
 therefore, it is better that we should separate. 
 I have consulted with Lisa, and she has sug 
 gested that you shall join Clara Vance s party 
 while we go our own way." 
 
 She stared at him. " Do you mean that you 
 and I are not to see London together? Not 
 to travel through Europe together ? M 
 
 He pitied her a little, and, leaning forward, 
 kissed her clammy lips. " The thing will seem 
 clearer to you to-morrow, no doubt. I must 
 leave you now. Go to Clara and her girls. 
 
45 
 
 They all like to pet and make much of you. I 
 will bring Lisa in the morning, to talk business 
 a little. She has an uncommonly clear head 
 for business. Good-by, dear ! " He stopped 
 the cab, jumped out, and walked briskly to the 
 corner where his wife was waiting for him. 
 
 " You have told her ? " she asked breath 
 lessly. 
 
 " Yes. It s over." 
 
 " That we must separate ?" 
 
 " Yes, yes. I told her you thought it best." 
 
 " And she was not willing ? " 
 
 " Well, she did not approve very cordially," 
 said George, evading her eye. 
 
 " But she shall approve ! " hanging upon his 
 arm, her burning eyes close to his face. " You 
 are mine, George! I love you. I will share 
 you with nobody ! " She whistled shrilly, and 
 a hansom stopped. 
 
 " What are you going to do, darling ? " 
 
 " Follow her. I will tell her something that 
 will make her willing to separate. Get in, get 
 in!" 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 FRANCES, when in trouble, went out of 
 doors among the trees as naturally as other 
 women take to their beds. Lisa s sharp eyes 
 saw her sitting in the Green Park as they 
 passed. The mist, which was heavy as rain, 
 hung in drops on the stretches of sward and 
 filled the far aisles of trees with a soft gray 
 vapor. The park was deserted but for an old 
 man who asked Mrs. Waldeaux for the penny s 
 hire for her chair. As he hobbled away, he 
 looked back at her curiously. 
 
 " She gave him a shilling ! " exclaimed Lisa, 
 as he passed them. " I told you she was not 
 fit to take care of money." 
 
 " But why not wait until to-morrow to talk 
 of business? She is hurt and unnerved just 
 now, and she she does not like you, Lisa." 
 
 " I am not afraid. She will be civil. She is 
 like Chesterfield. Even death cannot kill the 
 courtesy in her. You don t seem to know the 
 woman, George. Come." 
 
47 
 
 But George hung back and loitered among 
 the trees. He was an honest fellow, though 
 slow of wit ; he loved his mother and was 
 penetrated to the quick just now by a passion 
 ate fondness for his wife. Two such good, 
 clever women ! Why couldn t they hit it off 
 together? 
 
 " George ? " said Frances, hearing his steps. 
 
 Lisa came up to her. She rose, and smiled 
 to her son s wife, and after a moment held out 
 her hand. 
 
 But the courtesy which Lisa had expected 
 suddenly enraged her. " No ! There need be 
 no pretence between us," she said. " You are 
 not glad to see me. There is no pretence in 
 me. I am honest. I did not come here to 
 make compliments, but to talk business." 
 
 " George said to-morrow. Can it not wait 
 until to-morrow? " 
 
 " No. What is to do do it ! That is my 
 motto. George, come here ! Tell your 
 mother what we have decided. Oh, very well, 
 if you prefer that I should speak. We go to 
 Paris at once, Mrs. Waldeaux, and will take 
 apartments there. You will remain with Miss 
 Vance." 
 
4 8 
 
 " Yes, I know. I am to remain- 
 
 Frances passed her hand once or twice over her 
 mouth irresolutely. " But Oxford, George ? " 
 she said. " You forget your examinations? " 
 
 George took off his spectacles and wiped 
 them. 
 
 " Speak ! Have you no mind of your own ? " 
 his wife whispered. " I will tell you, then, 
 madam. He has done with that silly whim ! 
 A priest, indeed! I am Catholic, and priests 
 do not marry. He goes to Paris to study art. 
 I see a great future for him, in art." 
 
 Frances stared at him, and then sat down, 
 dully. What did it matter ? Paris or Oxford? 
 She would not be there. What did it 
 matter? 
 
 Lisa waited a moment for some comment, 
 and then began sharply, " Now, we come to 
 affaires! Listen, if you please. I am a 
 woman of business. Plain speaking is always 
 best, to my idea." 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux drew herself together and 
 turned her eyes on her with sudden apprehen 
 sion, as she would on a snapping dog. The 
 woman s tones threatened attack. 
 
 " To live in Paris, to work effectively, your 
 
49 
 
 son must have money. I brought him no dot, 
 alas ! Except " with a burlesque courtesy 
 " my beauty and my blood. I must know how 
 much money we shall have before I design the 
 menage." 
 
 " George has his income," said his mother 
 hastily. 
 
 " Ah ! You are alarmed, madam ! You 
 do not like plain words about the affaires? 
 George tells me that although he is long ago 
 of age, he has as yet received no portion of 
 his father s estates." 
 
 " Lisa ! You do not understand ! Mother, 
 I did not complain. You have always given 
 me my share of the income from the property. 
 I have no doubt it was a fair share as much 
 as if my father had left me my portion, accord 
 ing to custom." 
 
 " Yes, it was a fair share," said Frances. 
 
 " Ah ! you smile, madam ! " interrupted Lisa. 
 " I am told it is a vast property, a grand 
 chateau many securities! M. Waldeaux/M? 
 made a will, on dit y incredibly foolish, with no 
 mention of his son. But now that this son 
 comes to marry, to become the head of the 
 house, if you were a French mother, if you 
 
 4 
 
were just, you would You appear to be 
 
 amused, madam ? " 
 
 For Mrs. Waldeaux was laughing. She 
 could not speak for a moment. The tears 
 stood in her eyes. 
 
 " The matter has somewhat of droll to 
 you ? " 
 
 " It has its humorous side," said Frances. 
 " I quite understand, George, that you will 
 need more money to support a wife. I will 
 double your allowance. It shall be paid 
 quarterly." 
 
 "You would prefer to do that?" hesitated 
 George. " Rather than to make over a son s 
 share of the property to me absolutely ? Some 
 of the landed estate or securities? I have 
 probably a shrewder business talent than yours, 
 and if I had control could make my property 
 more profitable." 
 
 " I should prefer to pay your income as be 
 fore yes," said Frances quietly. 
 
 " Well, as you choose. It is yours to 
 give, of course." George coughed and shuffled 
 to conquer his disappointment. Then he 
 said, " Have it your own way." He put his 
 hand affectionately on her shoulder. " And 
 
when you have had your little outing and go 
 home to Weir, you will be glad to have us 
 come to you, for a visit won t you, mother? 
 You haven t said so." 
 
 " Why should I say so ? It is your home, 
 George, yours and your wife s." She caught 
 his hand and held it to her lips. 
 
 But Lisa had not so easily conquered her 
 disappointment. This woman was coolly rob 
 bing George of his rights and was going in 
 stead to kill for him a miserable little fatted 
 calf ! Bah ! This woman, who had maligned 
 her dead mother ! 
 
 She should have her punishment now. In 
 one blow, straight from the shoulder. 
 
 " But you should know, madam," she said 
 gently, " who it is your son has married before 
 you take her home. I assure you that you can 
 present me to the society in Weir with pride. 
 I have royal blood " 
 
 " Lisa ! " George caught her arm; " It is 
 not necessary. You forget -" 
 
 " Oh, I forget nothing ! I said royal blood. 
 My father, madam, was the brother of the 
 Czar, and my mother was Pauline Felix. You 
 don t seem to understand " after a 
 
moment s pause. " It was my mother whose 
 name you said should not cross any decent 
 
 woman s lips my mother " She broke 
 
 down into wild sobs. 
 
 " When I said it I did not know that you 
 
 I am sorry." Frances suddenly walked away, 
 pulling open her collar. It seemed to her that 
 there was no breath in the world. George fol 
 lowed her. " Did you know this ? " she said at 
 last, in a hoarse whisper. "And you are 
 married to her ? There is no way of being rid 
 of her ? " 
 
 " No, there is no way," said Waldeaux 
 stoutly. "And if there were, I should not 
 look for it. I am sorry that there is any 
 smirch on Lisa s birth. But even her mother, 
 I fancy, was not altogether a bad lot. Bygones 
 must be bygones. I love my wife, mother. 
 She s worth loving, as you d find if you would 
 take the trouble to know her. Her dead 
 mother shall not come between her and me." 
 
 "She s like her, George!" said Mrs. Wal 
 deaux, with white, trembling lips. " I ought to 
 have seen it at first. Those luring, terrible eyes. 
 It is Pauline Felix s heart that is in her. 
 Rotten to the core rotten " 
 
53 
 
 "I don t care. I ll stand by her." Biit 
 George s face, too, began to lose its color. He 
 shook himself uncomfortably. " The thing s 
 done now," he muttered. 
 
 " Certainly, certainly," Frances repeated 
 mechanically. "Tell her that I am sorry I 
 spoke of her mother before her. It was rude 
 brutal. I ask her pardon." 
 
 " Oh, she ll soon forget that ! Lisa has a 
 warm heart, if you take her right. There s 
 lots of hearty fun in her too. You ll like that. 
 Are you going now? Good-by, dear. We 
 will come and see you in the morning. The 
 thing will not seem half so bad when you have 
 slept on it." 
 
 He paused uncertainly, as she still stood 
 motionless. She was facing the grim walls of 
 Stafford House, looming dimly through the 
 mist, her eyes fixed as if she were studying 
 the sky line. 
 
 "George," she said. "You don t un 
 derstand. You will come to me always. 
 But that woman never shall cross my thresh 
 old." 
 
 " Mother ! Do you mean what you 
 say ? " 
 
54 
 
 It was a man, not a shuffling boy that 
 spoke now. " Do you mean that we are not 
 to go to you to-morrow ? Not to go home 
 in October? Never " 
 
 "Your home is open to you. But Pauline 
 Felix s child is no more to me than a wild 
 beast or a snake in the grass, and never can 
 be." She faced him steadily now. 
 
 " There she is," said Frances, looking at the 
 little black figure under the trees, " and here 
 am I. You can choose between us." 
 
 " Those whom God hath joined together," 
 muttered George. " You know that." 
 
 " You have known her for three weeks," 
 cried Frances vehemently. " I gave you life. 
 I have been your slave every hour since you 
 were born. I have lived but for you. Which 
 of us has God joined together? " 
 
 " Mother, you re damnably unreasonable ! 
 It is the course of nature for a man to leave 
 his parents and cleave to his wife." 
 
 " Yes, I know," she said slowly. " You can 
 keep that foul thing in your life, but it never 
 shall come into mine." 
 
 f Then neither will I. I will stand by my 
 wife." 
 
55 
 
 " That is the end, then ? " 
 She waited, her eyes on his. 
 He did not speak. 
 
 She turned and left him, disappearing slowly 
 in the rain and mist. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Two days later Mr. Perry met Miss Vance 
 in Canterbury and told her of the marriage. 
 She hurried back to London. She could not 
 hide her distress and dismay from the two 
 girls. 
 
 " How did she force him into it ? One is 
 almost driven to believe in hypnotism," she 
 cried. 
 
 Lucy Dunbar had no joke to make about it 
 to-day. The merry little girl was silent, hav 
 ing, she said, a headache. 
 
 " You ve had too much cathedral ! " said 
 Miss Hassard. "And the whole church is 
 wretchedly out of drawing ! " 
 
 Jean Hassard had studied art at Pond City 
 in Dakota, and her soul s hope had been to 
 follow Marie Bashkirtseffs career in Paris. 
 But her father had morally handcuffed her 
 and put her into Clara s custody for a year. 
 It was hard ! To be led about to old churches, 
 respectable as her grandmother, when she 
 
57 
 
 might have been stuctying the nude in a mixed 
 class ! She rattled her chains disagreeably at 
 every step. 
 
 " The mesalliance is on the other side," she 
 told Lucy privately. " A woman of the world 
 who knew life, to marry that bloodless, finical 
 priest ! " 
 
 " He was not bloodless. He loved her." 
 
 Mr. Perry came up with them from Canter 
 bury, being secretly alarmed about Miss Dun- 
 bar s headache. Nobody took proper care of 
 that lovely child ! He had attached himself 
 to Miss Vance s party in England ; he dropped 
 in every evening to tell of his interviews 
 with Gladstone or Mrs. Oliphant or an artist 
 or a duke. It was delightful to the girls to 
 come so close to these unknown great folks. 
 They felt quite like peris, just outside the court 
 of heaven, with the gate a little bit ajar. This 
 evening Mr. Perry promised it should open 
 for them. He was going to bring a real prince, 
 whom he familiarly dubbed " a jolly fellow," 
 to call upon Miss Vance. 
 
 " Who is the man?" said Clara irritably. 
 " Be careful, Mr. Perry. I have had enough 
 of foreign adventurers." 
 
" Oh, the Hof Kalender will post you as to 
 Prince Wolfburgh. I looked him up in it. 
 He is head of one of the great mediatized 
 families. Would have been reigning now if old 
 KaiserWilhelm had not played Aaron s serpent 
 and gobbled up all the little kings. Wolfburgh 
 has kept all his land and castles, however." 
 
 "Very well. Let us see what the man is 
 like," Miss Vance said loftily. 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux was not in the house when 
 they arrived. Every day she went early in the 
 morning to the Green Park, where she had 
 seen George last, and wandered about until 
 night fell. She thought that he had gone to 
 Paris, and that she was alone in London. But 
 somehow she came nearer to him there. 
 
 When she found that Clara had arrived, she 
 knew that she would be full of pity for her. 
 She came down to dinner in full dress, told 
 some funny stories, and laughed incessantly. 
 
 No. She had not missed them. The days 
 had gone merry as a marriage bell with her 
 even after her son and his wife had run away 
 to Paris. 
 
 Mr. Perry congratulated her warmly on the 
 
59 
 
 match. " The lady is very fetching, indeed," 
 he said. " I remarked that the first day on 
 ship-board. Oh, yes, I know a diamond when 
 I see it. But your son picks it up. Lucky 
 fellow! He picks it up!" He told Miss 
 Vance that there was a curious attraction 
 about her friend, "who, by the way, should 
 always wear brown velvet and lace." 
 
 Miss Vance drew little Lucy aside after 
 dinner. " Do you see," she said, " the tears in 
 her eyes? It wrenches my heart. She has 
 become an old woman in a day. I feel as. if 
 Frances were dead, and that was her ghost 
 joking and laughing." 
 
 Lucy said nothing, but she went to Frances 
 and sat beside her all evening. When the 
 prince arrived and was presented, going on his 
 triumphant way through the room, she nestled 
 closer, whispering, " What do you think of 
 him?" 
 
 " He looks very like our little fat Dutch 
 baker in Weir he has the same air of patron 
 age," said Frances coldly. She was offended 
 that Lucy should notice the man at all. Was 
 it not she whom George should have married? 
 How happy they would have been her boy 
 
6o 
 
 and this sweet, neat little girl ! And already 
 Lucy was curious about so-called princes ! 
 
 When his Highness came back to them she 
 rose hastily and went to her own room. 
 
 Late that night Miss Vance found her there 
 in the dark, sitting bolt upright in her chair, 
 still robed in velvet and lace. Clara regarded 
 her sternly, feeling that it was time to take her 
 in hand. 
 
 " You have not forgiven George ? " she said 
 abruptly. 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux looked up, but said nothing. 
 
 " Is he coming back soon?" 
 
 " He never shall come back while that 
 woman is with him." 
 
 Miss Vance put her lamp on the table and 
 sat down. " Frances," she said deliberately, 
 " I know what this is to you. It would have 
 been better for you that George had died." 
 
 " Much better." 
 
 "But he didn t die. He married Lisa 
 Arpent. Now it is your duty to accept it. 
 Make the best of it." 
 
 " If a lizard crawls into my house will you 
 tell me to accept it? Make the best of it? 
 Oh, my God ! The slimy vile creature ! " 
 
6i 
 
 " She is not vile ! I tell you there are lov 
 able qualities in Lisa. And even if she were 
 as wicked as her mother, what right have 
 
 you You, too, are a sinner before 
 
 God." 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Waldeaux gravely, " I am 
 not. I have lived a good Christian life. I 
 may have been tempted to commit sin, but I 
 cannot remember that I ever did it." 
 
 Miss Vance looked at her aghast. " But 
 
 surely your religion teaches you Why, 
 
 you are sinning now, when you hate this 
 girl!" 
 
 " I do not hate her. God made her as he 
 made the lizard. I simply will not allow her 
 to cross my path. What has religion to do 
 with it ? I am clean and she is vile. That is 
 all there is to say." 
 
 Both women were silent. Mrs. Waldeaux 
 got up at last and caught Clara by the arm. 
 She was trembling violently. " No, I m not 
 ill. I m well enough. But you don t under 
 stand ! That woman has killed George. I 
 spent twenty years in making him what he 
 is. I worked there was nothing but him for 
 me in the world. I didn t spare myself. To 
 
62 
 
 make him a gentleman a Christian. And in 
 a month she turns him into a thing like her 
 self. He is following her vulgar courses. I 
 saw the difference after he had lived with her 
 for one day. He is tainted." She stood star 
 ing into the dull lamp. " She may not live 
 long, though," she said. " She doesn t look 
 strong " 
 
 " Frances ! For God s sake ! " 
 
 "Well, what of it? Why shouldn t I wish 
 her gone ? The harm the harm ! Do you 
 remember that Swedish maid I had a great 
 fair woman? One day she was stung by a 
 green fly, and in a week she was dead, her 
 whole body a mass of corruption ! Oh, God 
 lets such things be done! Nothing but a 
 
 green fly " She shook off Clara s hold, 
 
 drawing her breath with difficulty. " That is 
 Lisa. It is George that is being poisoned, 
 body and soul. It s a pity to see my boy 
 killed by a thing like that it s a pity " 
 
 Miss Vance was too frightened to argue with 
 her. She brought her wrapper, loosened her 
 hair, soothing her in little womanish ways. 
 But her burning curiosity drove her presently 
 to ask one question. 
 
6 3 
 
 " How can they live?" 
 
 " I have doubled his allowance." 
 
 " Frances ! You will work harder to make 
 money far Lisa Arpent ? " 
 
 " Oh, what is money ! " cried Frances, push 
 ing her away impatiently. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Miss VANCE persuaded Mrs. Waldeaux to 
 go with her to Scotland. During the weeks 
 that followed Frances always found Lucy 
 Dunbar at her side in the trains or on the 
 coaches. 
 
 " She is a very companionable child," she 
 told Clara. " I often forget that I am any 
 older than she. She never tires of hearing 
 stories of George s scrapes or his queer say 
 ings when he was a child. Such stories, I 
 think, are usually tedious, but George was a 
 peculiar boy." 
 
 Mr. Perry s search for notorieties took him 
 also to Scotland, and, oddly enough, Prince 
 Wolfburgh s search for amusement led him 
 in the same direction. They met him and 
 his cousin, Captain Odo Wolfburgh, at Oban, 
 and again on the ramparts of Stirling Castle, 
 and the very day that they arrived in Edin 
 burgh, there, in Holyrood, in Queen Mary s 
 
chamber, stood the pursy little man, curling 
 his mustache before her mirror. 
 
 Mr. Perry fell into the background with 
 Miss Hassard. " His Highness is becoming 
 monotonous ! " he grumbled. " These for 
 eigners never know when they are superfluous 
 in society." 
 
 " Is he superfluous?" Jean glanced to the 
 corner where the prince and Lucy were 
 eagerly searching for the blood of Rizzio upon 
 the steps. 
 
 "Decidedly," said Perry. "I wished to 
 show you and Miss Dunbar a live prince, and 
 I did it. That is done and over with. He 
 has been seen and heard. There is no reason 
 why he should pop up here and there all over 
 Great Britain like a Jack-in-the-box. He s 
 becoming a bore." 
 
 "You suspect him to be an impostor?" 
 said Jean quickly. 
 
 " No. He s genuine enough. But we don t 
 want any foreigners in our caravan," stroking 
 his red beard complacently. ) 
 
 " No. What do you suppose is his ob 
 ject ? " asked Jean, with one of her quick, 
 furtive glances. 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 Mr. Perry s jaws grew red as his beard. 
 " How can I tell ? " he said gruffly. He went 
 on irritably, a moment later : " Of course you 
 see it. The fellow has no delicacy. He 
 makes no more secret of his plans than if he 
 were going to run down a rabbit. Last night 
 at Stirling, over his beer, he held forth upon 
 the dimples on Miss Dunbar s pink elbows, 
 and asked me if her hair were all her own. I 
 said, at last, that American men did not value 
 women like sheep by their flesh and fleece and 
 the money they were rated at in the market. 
 I hit him square that time, prince or no 
 prince ! " 
 
 " Yes, you did, indeed," said Jean vaguely. 
 Her keen eyes followed Lucy and the prince, 
 who were loitering through the gallery, paus 
 ing before the faded portraits. " You think it 
 is only her money that draws him after us ? " 
 
 " Why, of course ! A fellow like that could 
 not appreciate Miss Dunbar s beauty and wit." 
 
 " You think Lucy witty ? " said Jean dryly. 
 "And you think she would not marry for a 
 title ? " 
 
 " I don t believe any pure American girl 
 would sell herself, like a sheep in the sham- 
 
6 7 
 
 bles! And she is pure! A lamb, a lily!" 
 cried Perry, growing incoherent in his heat. 
 
 " She would not if her heart were preoccu 
 pied," said Jean thoughtfully. 
 
 " And you think " he said breathlessly. 
 
 But Jean only laughed, and said no more. 
 
 The guide had been paying profound defer 
 ence to Prince Wolfburgh, keeping close to 
 his heels. Now he swung open a do or, " If 
 your Highnesses will come this way?" he 
 said, bowing profoundly to Lucy. 
 
 The little girl started and hurried back to 
 Miss Vance. Her face was scarlet, and she 
 laughed nervously. Prince Wolfburgh also 
 laughed, loudly and meaningly. He swore at 
 the old man and went out into the cloister 
 where his cousin stood smoking. 
 
 Had enough of the old barracks?" said 
 the captain. 
 
 " I found I was making too fast running in 
 there," said the prince uneasily. " I ll waken 
 up and find that girl married to me some day." 
 
 " Not so bad a dream," puffed his cousin. 
 
 " I ll take a train somewhere," said the 
 prince. " But no matter where I go, I ll find 
 an American old woman with a girl to marry. 
 
63 
 
 They all carry the Hof Kalender in their 
 pockets, and know every bachelor in Ger 
 many." 
 
 The captain watched him attentively. " I 
 don t believe those women inside mean to 
 drive any marriage bargain with you, Hugo," 
 he said gruffly. " I doubt whether the little 
 mees would marry you if you asked her. 
 Her dot, I hear, is e-normous!" waving his 
 hand upward as if to mountain heights. " And 
 as for beauty, she is a wild rose ! " 
 
 Now, there were reasons why the captain 
 should rejoice when Hugo allied himself to 
 the little mees. On the day when he would 
 take these hills of gold and wild rose to him 
 self, the captain would become the head of the 
 house of Wolfburgh. It was, perhaps, a mean, 
 ungilded throne, but by German law no name 
 less Yankee woman could sit upon it. 
 
 The prince looked at Captain Odo. " You 
 cannot put me into a gallop when I choose to 
 walk," he said. " She s a pretty girl, and a 
 good girl, and some time I may marry her, but 
 not now." 
 
 Odo laughed good-humoredly, and they 
 sauntered down the path together. 
 
6 9 
 
 The prince had offered to dine with Miss 
 Vance that evening, but sent a note to say 
 that he was summoned to the Highlands un 
 expectedly. 
 
 " It is adieu, not auf wiederseken, I fear, with 
 his Highness," Miss Vance said, folding the 
 note pensively. She had not meant to drive a 
 marriage bargain, and yet to have placed a 
 pupil upon even such a bric-a-brac throne as 
 that of Wolfburgh ! She looked thoughtfully 
 at Lucy s chubby cheeks. A princess ? The 
 man was not objectionable in himself, either 
 a kindly, overgrown boy. 
 
 " He told me," said Jean, " that he was go 
 ing to a house party at Inverary Castle." 
 
 " Whose house is that, Jean ? " asked Lucy. 
 
 " It is the ancestral seat of the Dukes of 
 Argyll." 
 
 " Oh ! " Lucy gave a little sigh. Prince 
 Hugo was undeniably fat and very slow to 
 catch a joke, but there was certainly a different 
 
 flavor in this talk of dukes and ancestral seats 
 
 
 
 to the gossip about the Whites and Greens at 
 home. 
 
 Indeed, the whole party, including even Mr. 
 Perry, experienced a sensation of sudden 
 
70 
 
 vacancy and flatness when Jiis Highness left 
 them. It was as though they had been shel 
 tering a royal eagle that was used to dwelling 
 in sunlit heights unknown to them, and now 
 they were left on flat ground to consort with 
 common poultry. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Miss VANCE led her party slowly through 
 Scotland and down again to London. Mrs. 
 Waldeaux went with them. The girls secretly 
 laughed together at her fine indomitable polite 
 ness, and her violent passion for the Stuarts, 
 and hate of the Roundheads. But Mr. Perry 
 was bored by her. 
 
 " What is it to us," he said, " that Queen 
 Mary paddled over this lake, or Cromwell s 
 soldiers whitewashed that fresco ? Give me a 
 clean, new American church, anyhow, before 
 all of your mouldy, tomby cathedrals. These 
 things are so many cancelled cheques to me. 
 I have nothing to pay on them. It is live 
 issues that draw on my heart. You American 
 girls ought to be at home looking into the 
 negro problem, or Tammany, or the Sugar 
 Trust, instead of nosing into Rembrandts, or 
 miracles at Lourdes, or palaces. These are all 
 back numbers. Write n. g. on them and bury 
 them. So, by the way, is your Mrs. Waldeaux 
 
72 
 
 a back number. My own opinion is that all 
 men and women at fifty ought to go willingly 
 and be shut up in the room where the world 
 keeps its second-hand lumber ! " 
 
 " Yet nobody," said Lucy indignantly, " is 
 more careful or tender with Mrs. Waldeaux 
 than you ! " 
 
 " That is because Mr. Perry has the genuine 
 American awe of people of good birth," said 
 Jean slyly. " It is the only trait which makes 
 me suspect that he is a self-made man." 
 
 Mr. Perry, for answer, only bowed gravely. 
 He long ago had ceased to hide his opinion 
 that Miss Hassard was insufferable. 
 
 Frances, for her part, was sure that the 
 young people were glad to have her as a com 
 panion. One day she decided to stay with 
 them, and the next to go to New York on the 
 first steamer. She seemed to see life hazily, as 
 one over whose mind a cataract was growing. 
 What had she to do in Europe, she reasoned ? 
 George was gone. Her one actual hold on the 
 world had slipped from her. That great mys 
 terious thing called living was done and past 
 for her. 
 
 And yet there was Kenilworth, and Scott s 
 
73 
 
 house? Scott, who had been her friend and 
 leader since she was eight years old ! f And in 
 that anthem at York minster there was a mes 
 sage, which she had been waiting all of her life 
 to hear ! And here was Lucy beside her with 
 her soft voice, and loving blue eyes Lucy, 
 who should have been George s wife ! In all 
 of these things something high and good 
 called to the poor lady, which she heard and 
 understood as a child would the voice of its 
 mother. 
 
 One hour she resolved to leave her son 
 with his wife, to go back to Weir at once and 
 work with the poultry and Quigg s jokes for 
 the rest of her life. She was dead. Let her 
 give up and consent to be dead. 
 
 The next, she would stay where she could 
 see George sometimes, and try to forgive the 
 woman who had him in her keeping. Per 
 haps, after all, she was human, as Clara 
 said. If she could forgive Lisa, she could be 
 happy with these young people and live live 
 in this wonderful old world, where all that 
 was best of past ages was kept waiting for 
 her. 
 
 When they came to London, she went at 
 
74 
 
 once to Morgan s to make a deposit, for she 
 had been hard at work on her jokes as she 
 travelled, and had received her pay. 
 
 " Your son, madam," said the clerk, " drew 
 on his account to-day. He said he expected 
 remittances from you. Is this to be put to his 
 credit?" 
 
 " My son was in London to-day? " 
 
 " He has just left the house." 
 
 " Did he he left a message for me ? A 
 letter, perhaps?" 
 
 " No, nothing, madam." 
 
 " Put the money to his credit, of course." 
 
 She went out into the narrow street and 
 wandered along to the Bank of England, star 
 ing up at the huge buildings. 
 
 He had been looking at them he had 
 walked on this very pavement a minute 
 ago ! That might be the smoke of his cigar, 
 yonder ! 
 
 She could easily find him. Just to look at 
 him once ; to hold his hand ! He might be 
 ill and need her ; he never was well in foggy 
 weather. 
 
 Then she remembered that Lisa was with 
 him. She would nurse him. 
 
75 
 
 She called a cab, and, as she drove home, 
 looked out at the crowd with a hard, smiling 
 face. 
 
 Henry Irving that night played " Shylock," 
 and Mr. Perry secured a box for Miss Vance. 
 Frances went with the others. Before the 
 curtain rose there was a startled movement 
 among them, a whisper, and then Clara turned 
 to Mrs. Waldeaux. 
 
 " Frances, Lisa is coming into the opposite 
 box," she said. " She is really a beautiful 
 woman in that dtcollett gown, and her cheeks 
 
 flushed, and her eyes I had no idea! She 
 
 is superb ! " 
 
 Two men in the dress of French officers 
 entered the box with Lisa. They seated her, 
 bending over her with an empressement which, 
 to Mrs. Waldeaux s heated fancy, was insult 
 ing. George came last, carrying his wife s 
 cloak, which he placed upon a chair. One of 
 the men tossed his cape to him, with a familiar 
 nod, and George laid it aside and sat down at 
 the back of the box. 
 
 His mother leaned forward, watching. That 
 woman had put her son in the place of an in 
 ferior an attendant. 
 
The great orchestra shook the house with a 
 final crash, and the curtain rose upon the 
 Venetian plaza. Every face in the audience 
 was turned attentive toward it. But Mrs. 
 Waldeaux saw only Lisa. 
 
 A strange change came upon her as she 
 watched her son s wife. For months she had 
 struggled feebly against her hate of Lisa. 
 Now she welcomed it ; she let herself go. 
 
 Is the old story true after all? Is there 
 some brutal passion hiding in every human 
 soul, waiting its chance, even in old age? It 
 is certain that this woman, after her long harm 
 less life, recognized the fury in her soul and 
 freed it. 
 
 " Frances," whispered Clara, " when this 
 act is over, go and speak to them. I will go 
 with you. It is your chance to put an end to 
 this horrible separation. They are your chil 
 dren." 
 
 " No. That woman is my enemy, Clara," 
 said Mrs. Waldeaux quietly. " I will make no 
 terms with her." 
 
 Miss Vance sighed and turned to the stage, 
 but Frances still watched the opposite box. 
 It seemed as if the passion within her had 
 
77 
 
 cleared her eyes. They never had seen George 
 as they now saw him. 
 
 Was that her son ? Was it that little prig 
 gish, insignificant fellow that she had made a 
 god of ? He was dull, commonplace ! Satis 
 fied to sit dumb in the background and take 
 orders from those bourgeois French Jews ! 
 
 The play went on, but she saw nothing but 
 George and his wife. 
 
 There was the result of all her drudgery ! 
 The hot summers of work in the filthy poultry 
 yards ; the grinding out of poor jokes ; the 
 coarse, cheap underclothes (she used to cry 
 when she put them on, she hated them so). 
 Years and years of it all ; and for that cold, 
 selfish fop ! 
 
 His mother saw him leave the box, and 
 knew that he was coming. 
 
 " Oh, good-evening, George ! " she said gayly, 
 as he opened the door. "A wonderful scene, 
 wasn t it? I have always wished to see Irving 
 in Hamlet. " 
 
 " This is Shylock, " he said gravely, and 
 turned to speak to the others. They welcomed 
 him eagerly, and made room for him. He had 
 lost something of the cold, blast air which had 
 
ennobled him in the eyes of the young women. 
 He looked around presently, and said with a 
 comfortable shrug : 
 
 " It is so pleasant to talk English again ! 
 My wife detests it. We speak only French. I 
 feel like an alien and outcast among you ! " 
 He laughed ; his mother glanced at him curi 
 ously. But Lucy turned her face away, afraid 
 that he should see it. As he talked, George 
 noted the clear-cut American features of the 
 girls, and their dainty gowns, with a keen 
 pleasure ; then he glanced quickly at the op 
 posite box. 
 
 "Ah!" said Jean to Mr. Perry. "The 
 soiled lace and musk are beginning to tell ! 
 He is tired of Lisa already ! " 
 
 " I never liked the fellow," said Mr. Perry 
 coldly. " But he is hardly the cad that you 
 suppose." 
 
 He fell into a gloomy silence. He had 
 wasted two years salary in following Lucy 
 Dunbar about, in showering flowers on her, 
 in posing before her in the last fashions 
 of Conduit Street, and yet when this con 
 ceited fellow came into the box she was blind 
 and deaf to all besides ! Her eyes rilled 
 
79 
 
 with tears just now when he talked of his 
 loneliness. Lonely with his wife ! A mar 
 ried man ! 
 
 George, when the curtain fell again, sat down 
 by Frances. 
 
 " Mother," he said. 
 
 " Yes, George." Her eyes were bright and 
 attentive, but her countenance had fallen into 
 hard lines new to him. 
 
 " I went to Morgan s this afternoon. You 
 have been very liberal to us." 
 
 " I will do what I can. You may depend 
 upon that amount, regularly." 
 
 He rose and bade them good-night, and 
 turned to her again. 
 
 " We we are coming to-morrow to thank 
 you. Mother f " There was a hoarse sob in 
 his throat. He laid his hand on her arm. 
 She moved so that it dropped. " We will 
 come to-morrow," he said. " Did you under 
 stand ? Lisa wishes to be friends with you. 
 She is ready to forgive," he groped on, blun 
 dering, like a man. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I understand. You and Lisa are 
 coming to forgive me to-morrow," she said, 
 smiling. 
 
8o 
 
 He looked at her, perplexed and waiting. 
 
 But she said no more. 
 
 " Well, I must go now. Good-night." 
 
 " Good-night, George ! " Her bright, smiling 
 
 eyes followed him steadily, as he went out. 
 
 Mrs. Waldeux tapped at Clara s door that 
 evening after they reached home. 
 
 " I came to tell you that I shall leave Lon 
 don early in the morning," she said. 
 
 " You will not wait to see George and his 
 wife?" 
 
 " I hope I never shall see them again. No ! 
 Not a word ! I will hear no arguments ! " 
 She came into the room and closed the door. 
 There was a certain novel air of decision and 
 youth in her figure and movements. " I am 
 going to make a change, Clara," she said. " I 
 have worked for others long enough. I am 
 going away now, alone. I will be free. I will 
 live my own life at last." Her eyes shone 
 with exultation. 
 
 "And Where are you going?" stam 
 mered Miss Vance, dismayed. 
 
 " I don t know. There is so much it has 
 all been waiting so long for me. There are 
 
Si 
 
 the cathedrals and the mountains. Or the 
 Holy Land. Perhaps I may try to write 
 again. There seems to be a dumb word or 
 two in me. Don t be angry with me, Clara," 
 throwing her arms about her cousin, the tears 
 rushing to her eyes. " I may come back to 
 you and little Lucy some time. But just now 
 I want to be alone and fancy myself young. 
 I never was young." 
 
 When Lucy stole into her old friend s cham 
 ber the next morning as usual to drink her 
 cup of coffee with her, she found the door 
 open and the room in disorder, and she was 
 told that Mrs. Waldeaux had left London at 
 daybreak. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 DURING the year which followed, Mr. Perry 
 was forced to return to the States, but he 
 made two flying trips across " the pond," as 
 he called it, in the interests of his magazine, 
 always running down his prey of notorieties in 
 that quarter of Europe in which Miss Vance 
 and her charges chanced to be. 
 
 When he came in July he found them in a 
 humble little inn in Bozen. He looked with 
 contempt at the stone floors, the clean cell- 
 like chambers, each with its narrow bed, and 
 blue stone ewer perched on a wooden stool ; 
 and he sniffed with disgust when breakfast 
 was served on a table set out in the Platz. 
 
 " Don t know," he said, " whether I can 
 digest food, eating out of doors. Myself, I 
 never give in to these foreign ways. It s time 
 they learned manners from us." 
 
 " I have no doubt," said Miss Vance placidly, 
 " that you can find one of the usual hotels 
 built for rich Americans in the town. We 
 
avoid them. We search out the inns du pays 
 to see as far behind the scenes as we can. I 
 don t care to go to those huge houses with 
 mobs of Chicagoans and New Yorkers; and 
 have the couriers and portiers turn the flash 
 lights on Europe for me, as if it were a bur 
 lesque show." 
 
 "Now, that s just what I like!" said Perry. 
 " I always go to the houses where the royalties 
 put up. I like to order better dishes and give 
 bigger tips than they do. They don t know 
 Jem Perry from Adam, but it s my way of wav 
 ing the American flag." 
 
 "gl am afraid we have no such patriotic 
 motive," said Clara. * My girls seem to care 
 for nothing now but art. We have made this 
 little inn our headquarters in the Tyrol chiefly 
 out of love for the old church yonder." 
 
 Mr. Perry glanced contemptuously across 
 the Platz at the frowning gray building, and 
 sat down with his back to it. 
 
 "Art, eh? Well, I ve no doubt I could 
 soon catch on to Art, if I turned my mind 
 that way. It pays, too, Art. Not the fel 
 lows who paint, but the connoisseurs. There s 
 Miller from our town. He was a drummer 
 
\ 
 t 
 
 4 
 
 for a candy firm. Had an eye for color. 
 Well, he buys pictures now for Americans 
 who want galleries in their houses. He 
 bought his whole collection for Stout the 
 great dealer in hams. Why, Miller can tell 
 the money value within five dollars, at sight, 
 of any picture in Europe. He s safe, too. 
 Never invests in pictures that aren t sure to 
 go up in price. Getting rich! And began 
 as a candy drummer ! No, ma am ! Art s no 
 mystery. I ve never taken it up myself. 
 Europe is sheer pleasure to me. I get the 
 best out of it. I know where to lodge well, 
 and I can tell you where the famous plats are 
 cooked, and I have my coats built by Toole. 
 The house pays me a salary which justifies me 
 in humoring my little follies," stroking his red 
 beard complacently. 
 
 Lucy s chubby face and steady blue eyes 
 were turned on him thoughtfully, and pres 
 ently, when they sauntered down the windy 
 street together, he talked and she still silently 
 watched him. 
 
 " Miss Precision is weighing him in the 
 balance," said Jean, laughing, as she poured out 
 more black coffee. " With all of her soft ways 
 
Lucy is shrewd. She knows quite well why 
 he races across the Atlantic, and why Prince 
 Wolfburgh has backed away from us and 
 charged on us again all summer. She is cool. 
 She is measuring poor Perry s qualifications 
 for a husband now just as she would materials 
 for a cake. A neat little inventory. So much 
 energy, so much honest kindness so much 
 vulgarity. I couldn t do that. If ever a man 
 wants to marry me, I ll fly to him or away 
 from him, as quick as the steel needle does 
 when the magnet touches it." 
 
 Miss Vance listened to her attentively. 
 "Jean," she said, after a pause, "are you sure 
 that it is Lucy whom the prince wishes to 
 marry?" 
 
 " It is not I," said Miss Hassard promptly. 
 " He has thought of me several times he has 
 weighed my qualifications. But the man is in 
 love with Lucy as honestly as a ploughman 
 could be. Don t you think I ve tough luck ? " 
 she said, resting her elbow on the table and 
 her chin on her palm, her keen gray eyes 
 following Miss Dunbar and her lover as they 
 loitered under the shadow of the church. " I 
 am as young as Lucy. I have a better brain 
 
86 
 
 and as big a dot. But her lovers make her 
 life a burden, and I never have had one. Just 
 because our noses and chins are made up 
 differently ! " 
 
 " Oh, my dear ! " said Clara anxiously. " I 
 never thought you cared for that kind of suc 
 cess ! " 
 
 " I m only human," Jean laughed. " Of 
 course I m an artist. I m going to paint a 
 great picture some day that all the world shall 
 go mad about. Of Eve. I ll put all the 
 power of all women into her. But in the 
 meantime I d like to see one man turn pale 
 and pant before me as the fat little prince 
 does when Lucy snubs him." 
 
 " Lucy is very hard to please," complained 
 Miss Vance. " She snubs Mr. Perry natur 
 ally. But the prince why should she not 
 marry the prince ? " 
 
 " Your generation," said Jean, smiling slyly, 
 " used to think that an unreasonable whim 
 called love was a good thing in marriage " 
 
 " But why should she not love the prince ? 
 He is honorable and kind, and quite passable 
 
 as to looks Can there be any one else ? " 
 
 turning suddenly to Jean. 
 
Miss Hassard looked at her a moment, hesi 
 tating. " Your cousin George used to be 
 Lucy s type of a hero " 
 
 " Why ! the man is married ! " Miss Vance 
 stood up, her lean face reddening. " Jean ! 
 You surprise me ! That kind of talk it s 
 indecent ! It is that loose American idea of 
 marriage that ends in hideous divorce cases. 
 But for one of my girls " 
 
 " It is a very old idea," said Jean calmly. 
 " David loved another man s wife. Mind you, 
 I don t accuse Lucy of loving any body, but 
 when the needle has once touched the magnet 
 it answers to its call ever after." 
 
 Miss Vance vouchsafed no answer. She 
 walked away across the Platz, jerking her 
 bonnet strings into a knot. Jean was one of 
 the New Women ! Her opinions stuck out on 
 every side like Briareus hundred elbows ! 
 You could not come near her without being 
 jabbed by them. Such women were all 
 opinions ; there was no softness, no feeling, 
 no delicacy about them. Skeletons with 
 no flesh ! As for Lucy, she had no fear. 
 If even the child had loved George, she 
 would have cast out every thought of him 
 
88 
 
 on his wedding day, as a Christian girl 
 should do ! 
 
 She passed Lucy at that moment. She was 
 leaning against one of the huge stone lions 
 which crouch in front of the church, listening 
 to Mr. Perry. If ever a pure soul looked 
 into the world it was through those limpid 
 eyes! 
 
 The Platz was nearly empty. One or two 
 men in blouses clattered across the cobble 
 stones and going into the dark church dropped 
 on their knees. The wind was high, and now 
 and then swept heavy clouds low across the 
 sunlight space overhead. 
 
 Lucy, as Jean had guessed, knew why the 
 man beside her had crossed the Atlantic, and 
 she had decided last night to end the matter 
 at once. The tears had stood in her eyes for 
 pky at the thought of the pain she must give 
 him. Yet she had put on her new close-fitting 
 coat and a becoming fur cap, and pulled out 
 the loose hair which she knew at this moment 
 was blowing about her pink cheeks in curly 
 wisps in a way that was perfectly maddening. 
 Clara, seeing the mischief in her eyes as she 
 listened shyly to Perry, went on satisfied. 
 
8 9 
 
 There was no abyss of black loss in that girl s 
 life! 
 
 Lucy just now was concerned only for 
 Perry. How the poor man loved her ! Why 
 not marry him after all, and put him out of his 
 pain ? She was twenty-four. Most women at 
 twenty-four had gone through their little 
 tragedy of love. But she had had no tragedy. 
 She told herself firmly that there had been no 
 story of love in her life. There never could 
 be, now. She was too old. 
 
 She was tired, too, and very lonely. This 
 man would seat her on a throne and worship 
 her every day. That would be pleasant 
 enough. 
 
 " I am ashamed of myself," he was saying, 
 " to pursue you in this way. You have given 
 me no encouragement, I know. But whenever 
 I go to New York and bone down to work, 
 something tells me to come back and try 
 again." 
 
 Lucy did not answer, and there was a brief 
 silence. 
 
 " Of course I m a fool," prodding the 
 ground with his stick. " But if a man were in 
 a jail cell and knew that the sun was shining 
 
just outside, he d keep on beating at the 
 wall." 
 
 "Your life is not a jail cell. It s very com 
 fortable, I think." 
 
 " It has been bare enough. I have had a 
 hard fight to live at all. I told you that I be 
 gan as a canal-boy." 
 
 She looked at him with quick sympathy. 
 At once she fancied that she could read old 
 marks of want on his face. His knuckles were 
 knobbed like a laborer s. He had had a hard 
 fight ! It certainly would be pleasant to rain 
 down comfort and luxury on the good, plucky 
 fellow! 
 
 " Of course that was all long ago," said 
 Perry. "I m not ashamed of it. As Judge 
 Baker remarked the other day, The acknowl 
 edged aristocrats of America, to-day, are its 
 self-made men. He ought to know. The 
 Bakers are the top of the heap in New 
 York. Very exclusive. I ve been intimate 
 there for years. No, Miss Dunbar, I may 
 have begun as a mule-driver on a canal, but 
 I am choice in my society. My wife will not 
 find a man or woman in my circle who is 
 half-cut." 
 
9 1 
 
 Lucy drew a long breath. To live all day 
 and every day with this man ! 
 
 And yet she was so tired! There was a 
 good deal of money to manage, and he could 
 do that. He would like a gay, hospitable 
 house, and so would she, and they would be 
 kind to the poor and he was an Episcopa 
 lian, too. There would be no hitch there. 
 Lucy was a zealous High Churchwoman. 
 
 Why should she not do it ? The man was 
 as good as gold at heart. Jean called him 
 a cad, but the caddishness was only skin 
 deep. 
 
 Mr. Perry watched her, reading her thoughts 
 more keenly than she guessed. 
 
 " One thing I will say in justice to myself," 
 he said. "You are a rich woman. If you 
 marry me, you will know, if nobody else does, 
 that I am no fortune-hunter. I shall always 
 be independent of my wife. Every dollar she 
 owns shall be settled on her before I go with 
 her to the altar." 
 
 " Oh, I m not thinking of the money," said 
 Lucy impatiently. 
 
 " Then you are thinking of me ! " He 
 leaned over her. She felt as if she had been 
 
9 2 
 
 suddenly dragged too close to a big unpleasant 
 fire. " I know you don t love me," he panted, 
 " you cold little angel, you ! But you do like 
 me? Eh? Just a little bit, Lucy? Marry 
 me. Give me a chance. I ll bring you to me. 
 If there is a single spark of love in your heart 
 for me, I ll blow it into a flame ! I can do it, 
 I tell you ! " He caught her fiercely by the 
 shoulder. 
 
 Lucy drew back and threw out her hands. 
 " Let me have time to think ! " 
 
 " Time ? You ve had a year ! " 
 
 " One more day. Come again this even- 
 ing " 
 
 "This evening? I ve come so often!" 
 staring breathlessly into her face. " It will be 
 no use, I can see that. Well, as you please. 
 I ll come once more." 
 
 The young fellow in his jaunty new clothes 
 shook as if he had the ague. He had touched 
 her. For one minute she had been his ! 
 
 He turned and walked quickly across the 
 Platz. 
 
 Lucy, left alone, was full of remorse. She 
 looked down into her heart ; she had forgotten 
 to do it before. No, not a spark for him to 
 
93 
 
 blow into a flame ; not a single warm thought 
 of him ! 
 
 The girl was ashamed of herself. He 
 might be a cad, but he was real ; his honest 
 love possessed him body and soul. It was a 
 matter of expediency to her ; a thing to debate 
 with herself, to dally over, with paltry pros 
 and cons. 
 
 Miss Vance came hurriedly up the street, 
 an open letter in her hand. Lucy ran to meet 
 her. 
 
 " What is it ? You have heard bad news ? " 
 
 " I suppose we ought not to call it that. It 
 is from George Waldeaux. They have a son, 
 two months old. He tells it as a matter for 
 rejoicing." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Lucy feebly. 
 
 " They are at Vannes in Brittany. He 
 has a cough. He seems to know nobody to 
 have no friends, and, I suspect, not much 
 money. He is terribly depressed." Clara 
 folded the letter thoughtfully. " He asks me 
 to tell his mother that the baby has come." 
 
 " Where is his mother ? " 
 
 " In Switzerland." 
 
 " Why is she not with him ? " demanded 
 
94 
 
 Lucy angrily. "Wandering about gathering 
 edelweiss, while he is alone and wretched ! " 
 
 " He has his wife. You probably do not 
 understand the case fully," said Clara coldly. 
 " I am going to wire to his mother now." She 
 turned away and Lucy stood irresolute, her 
 hand clutching the shaggy head of the stone 
 beast beside her. 
 
 " I can give him money. I ll go to him. 
 He needs me ! " she said aloud. Then her 
 whole body burned with shame. She Lucy 
 Dunbar, good proper Lucy, whose conscience 
 hurt her if she laid her handkerchiefs away 
 awry in her drawer, nursing a criminal passion 
 for a married man ! 
 
 She went slowly back to the inn. " He has 
 his wife," she told herself. " I am nothing to 
 him. I doubt if he would know me if he met 
 me on the street." She tried to go back to 
 her easy-going mannerly little thoughts, but 
 there was something strange and fierce behind 
 them that would not down. 
 
 Jean came presently to the salle. " I have 
 had a letter too," she said. " The girl who 
 writes came from Pond City. She was in the 
 same atelier in Paris with George. She says: 
 
95 
 
 * Your friends the Waldeaux have come to grief 
 by a short cut. They flung money about for 
 a few months as if they were backed by the 
 Barings. The Barings might have given their 
 suppers. As for their studio there was no 
 untidier jumble of old armor and brasses and 
 Spanish leather in Paris; and Mme. George pos 
 ing in the middle in soiled tea-gowns ! But the 
 suppers suddenly stopped, and the leather and 
 Persian hangings went to the Jews. I met 
 Lisa one day coming out of the Vendome, 
 where she had been trying to peddle a roll of 
 George s sketches to the rich Americans. I 
 asked her what was wrong, and she laughed 
 and said, " We were trying to make thirty 
 francs do the work of thirty thousand. And 
 we have made up our minds that we know no 
 more of art than house painters. We are in 
 a blind alley ! " Soon after that the baby was 
 born. They went down to Brittany. I hear 
 that Lisa, since the child came, has been ill. 
 I tell all this dreary stuff to you thinking that 
 you may pass it on to their folks. Somebody 
 ought to go to their relief. 
 
 "Relief!" exclaimed Miss Vance. "And 
 the money that they were flinging into the 
 
9 6 
 
 gutter was earned day by day by his old 
 mother! Every dollar of it ! I know that 
 during the last year she has done without 
 proper clothes and food to send their allow 
 ance to them." 
 
 "You forget," said Lucy, "that George 
 Waldeaux was doing noble work in the world. 
 It was a small thing for his mother to help 
 him." 
 
 " Noble work? His pictures or his sermons, 
 Lucy?" demanded Miss Vance, with a con 
 temptuous shrug. 
 
 Lucy without reply walked out to the inn 
 garden and seated herself in a shady corner. 
 There Mr. Perry found her just as the first 
 stroke of the angelus sounded on the air. 
 Her book lay unopened on her lap. 
 
 He walked slowly up to her and stopped, 
 breathing hard, as if he had been running. 
 " It is evening now. I have come for my 
 answer, Miss Dunbar," he said, forcing a smile. 
 
 "Answer?" Lucy looked up bewildered. 
 
 "You have forgotten!" 
 
 The blood rushed to her face. She held out 
 her hands. " Oh, forgive me ! I heard bad 
 news. I have been so troubled " 
 
97 
 
 " You forgot that I had asked you to be my 
 wife!" 
 
 " Mr. Perry " 
 
 "No, don t say another word, Miss Dunbar. 
 I have had my answer. I knew you didn t 
 love me, but I did not think I was so paltry 
 that you would forget that I had offered to 
 marry you." 
 
 Lucy pressed her hands together, looking up 
 at him miserably without a word. He walked 
 down the path and leaned on the wall with 
 his back to her. His very back was indig 
 nant. 
 
 Presently he turned. " I will bid you good- 
 by," he said, with an effort at lofty courtesy, 
 " and I will leave my adieux for your friends 
 with you." 
 
 "Are you going back to the States?" 
 stammered Lucy. 
 
 "Yes, I am going back to the States," he 
 replied sternly. "A man of merit there has 
 his place, regardless of rank. Jem Perry can 
 hold his head there as high as any beggarly 
 prince. Farewell, Miss Dunbar." 
 
 He strode down the path and disappeared. 
 Lucy shook her head and cried from sheer 
 
 7 
 
9 8 
 
 wretchedness. She felt that she had been 
 beaten to-day with many stripes. 
 
 Suddenly the bushes beside her rustled. 
 " Forgive me," he said hoarsely. She looked 
 up and saw his red honest eyes. " I behaved 
 like a brute. Good-by, Lucy ! I never loved 
 any woman but you, and I never will." 
 
 " Stay, stay ! " she cried. 
 
 He heard her, but he did not come back. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LUCY was silent and dejected for a day or 
 two, being filled with pity for Mr. Perry s 
 ruined life. But when she saw his name in a 
 list of outgoing passengers on the Paris her 
 heart gave a bound of relief. Nothing more 
 could now be done. That chapter, was closed. 
 There had been no other chapter of moment 
 in her life, she told herself sternly. Now, all 
 the clouds had cleared away. It was a new 
 day. She would begin again. 
 
 So she put on new clothes, none of which 
 she had ever worn before, and tied back 
 her curly hair with a fresh white ribbon, 
 and came down to breakfast singing gayly. 
 
 Miss Vance gave her her roll and milk in 
 silence, and frowning importantly, drew out a 
 letter. 
 
 " Lucy, I have just received a communica 
 tion from Prince Wolfburgh. He is in Bozen." 
 
 " Here ! " Lucy started up, glancing around 
 like a chased hare. 
 
100 
 
 Then she sat down again and waited. There 
 was no other chapter, and the book was so 
 blank ! 
 
 "His coming is very opportune," she said 
 presently, gently. 
 
 " Oh ! do you think so, my dear ? Really ! 
 Well, I always have liked the young man. So 
 simple. So secure of his social position. The 
 Wolfburghs, I find, go back to the eleventh 
 century. Mr. Perry had noble traits, but one 
 never felt quite safe as to his nails or his 
 grammar." 
 
 "But the prince the prince?" cried 
 Jean. 
 
 " Oh, yes. Well, he writes most deferen 
 tially. He begs for the honor of an interview 
 with me this afternoon upon a subject of the 
 most vital importance. He says, regarding 
 you, as I do, in loco parentis to the hochgebo- 
 ren Fraulein Dunbar. " 
 
 "Hochgeboren ! " said Lucy. " My grand 
 father was a saddler. Tell him so, Miss Vance. 
 Tell him the exact facts. I want no disclo 
 sures after " 
 
 "After marriage?" said Jean, rising sud 
 denly. " Then you have decided ? " 
 
101 
 
 " I have not said that I had decided/ 
 replied Lucy calmly. 
 
 Jean laughed. " He will not be scared by 
 the saddler. Europeans of his order take no 
 account of our American class distinctions. 
 They look upon us as low-born parvenues, all 
 alike. They weigh and value us by other 
 standards than birth." 
 
 " I have money, if you mean that, Jean," 
 said Lucy cheerfully. 
 
 " I think you had better go away, girls, 
 if you have finished your dejeuner. He may 
 be here at any moment now," said Clara, 
 looking anxiously at her watch. 
 
 Lucy went to her little chamber and sat 
 down to work at a monstrous caricature which 
 she was painting of the church. Jean paced 
 up and down the stone corridor, looking out 
 of the window into the Platz. 
 
 " He has come," she said excitedly, appear 
 ing at Lucy s door. " He went into the church 
 first, to say an ave for help, poor little man ! 
 His fat face is quite pale and stern. It is a 
 matter of life and death to him. And it s no 
 more to you than the choosing of a new coat." 
 
 Lucy smiled and sketched in a priest on the 
 
102 
 
 church steps. Her hand shook, but Jean could 
 not see that. She went to the window again 
 with something like an inward oath at the 
 dolts of commonplace women who had all the 
 best chances, but was back in a moment, 
 laughing nervously. 
 
 " Do you know he has on that old brown 
 suit?" She leaned against the jamb of the 
 door. " If I were a prince, and came a-wooing, 
 I would have troops of my Jagers, and trum 
 pets and banners with the arms of my House, 
 and I d wear all my decorations. Of course 
 we Americans are bound to say that rank and 
 royalty are dead things. But if I had them, 
 I d galvanize the corpses ! If they are useful 
 as shows, I d make the show worth seeing. 
 I d cover myself with jewels like the old 
 Romanoffs. You would never see Queen 
 Jean in a slouchy alpaca and pork-pie hat 
 like Victoria." While her tongue chattered, 
 her eyes watched Lucy keenly. "You don t 
 hear me ! You are deciding what to do. 
 Why on earth should you hesitate? He 
 is a gentleman he loves you ! " and then 
 to Lucy s relief she suddenly threw on her 
 hat and rushed off for a walk. 
 
103 
 
 Miss Dunbar painted the priest s robe yel 
 low, in her agitation. But the agitation was 
 not deep. There really seemed no reason why 
 she should hesitate. He would be kind ; he 
 was well-bred and agreeable. A princess? 
 She had a vague idea of a glorified region 
 of ancestral castles and palaces in which dukes 
 and royalties dwelt apart and discoursed of 
 high matters. She would be one of them. 
 
 The other day there seemed to be no reason 
 why she should not marry Mr. Perry. In mar 
 riage then one must only consider the suita 
 bility of the man ? There was nothing else 
 to consider 
 
 With a queer, hunted look in her soft eyes 
 she worked on, daubing on paint liberally. 
 
 Meanwhile, in the little salle below, Miss 
 Vance sat stiffly erect, while the prince talked 
 in his shrill falsetto. Although he set forth 
 his affection for the engelreine Mddchen as 
 simply as the little German baker in Weir 
 (whom he certainly did resemble) might have 
 jione, she could find, in her agitation, no fit 
 ting words in which to answer him. That 
 she, Clara Vance, should be the arbiter in 
 a princely alliance ! At last she managed to 
 
104 
 
 ask whether Miss Dunbar had given him any 
 encouragement on which to found his claim. 
 
 " Ah, Fraulein Vance ! " he cried, laugh 
 ing. " The hare does not call to the hounds ! 
 But I have no fear. She speaks to me in other 
 ways than by words. 
 
 " Mein Herz und seine Augen 
 Verstehen sich gar so gut ! 
 
 You know the old song. Ah, ja ! I under 
 stand what she would say here ! " touching 
 his heart. 
 
 He paced up and down, smiling to himself. 
 Suddenly he drew up before her, tossing his 
 hands out as if to throw away some pleasant 
 dream. " I have come to you, gracious lady, 
 as I would to the mother of Miss Dunbar. I 
 show to you the heart ! But before I address 
 her it is necessary that I shall consult her 
 guardian with regard to business." 
 
 It was precisely, Clara said afterward, as if 
 the baker from Weir had stopped singing, and 
 presented his bill. 
 
 " Business ? " she gasped. " Oh, I see ! 
 Settlements. We don t have such things in 
 the States. But I quite understand all those 
 
105 
 
 European social traits. I have lived abroad 
 for years. I- " 
 
 " Who is Miss Dunbar s guardian ? " the 
 prince demanded alertly. He sat down by the 
 table-and took out a notebook and papers. 
 
 " But settlements ? Is not that a little pre 
 mature ? " she ventured. " She has not ac 
 cepted you." 
 
 "He may not accept my financial proposals. 
 It is business, you see. The gentle ladies, 
 even die Amerikaner, do not comprehend 
 business. It is not, you perceive, dear lady, 
 the same when the head of the House of 
 Wolfburgh allies himself with a hochgcboren 
 Frdulein as when the tailors marry " 
 
 " Nor bakers. I see," stammered Clara. 
 
 " Miss Dunbar s properties are valuable. 
 Her estate in Del-aware," glancing at his note 
 book, " is larger than some of our German 
 kingdoms. Her investments in railway and 
 mining securities, if put on the market, should 
 be worth a million of florins. These are solid 
 matters, and must be dealt with carefully." 
 
 " But, good gracious, Prince Wolfburgh ! " 
 cried Miss Vance, "how did you find out about 
 Lucy s investments?" 
 
io6 
 
 He looked at her in amazement. " Meine 
 gnddigste Frdnlein ! It is not possible that 
 you supposed that in such a matter as this 
 men leap into the dark the men of rank, 
 princes, counts, English barons, who marry 
 the American mees ? That they do not know 
 for what they exchange their all that they 
 give ? I will tell you," with a condescending 
 smile. " There are agents in the States in 
 New York in Chicago in how do you 
 name it ? St. Sanata. They furnish exact 
 information as to the dot of the lady who will, 
 perhaps, marry here. Oh, no ! We do not 
 leap into the dark ! " 
 
 " So I perceive," said Clara dryly. " And 
 may I inquire, your Highness, what financial 
 arrangement you propose, in case she becomes 
 your wife ? " 
 
 " Assuredly." He hastily unfolded a large 
 paper. " This must be accepted by her guar 
 dian before the betrothal can take place. I 
 will translate, in brief. The whole estate 
 passes to me, and is secured to me in case of 
 my wife s death without issue. I inserted 
 that clause," he said, looking up, smiling, for 
 approval, " because American Frduleins are so 
 
107 
 
 fragile not like our women. I will, of course, 
 if we have issue, try to preserve the real es 
 tate for my heir, and the remaining property 
 for my other children." 
 
 " It seems to me that a good deal is taken 
 for granted there," said Clara, whose cheeks 
 were very hot. " And where does Miss Dun- 
 bar come into this arrangement ? Is she not 
 to have any money at all ? " 
 
 " My widow, should I die first, will be paid 
 an annuity from my estate. But while Mees 
 Lucy is my wife, /will buy all that she needs. 
 I will delight to dress her, to feed her well. 
 With discretion, of course. For there are 
 many channels into which my income must 
 flow. But I will not be a niggardly husband 
 to her ! No, no ! " cried the little man in 
 a glow. 
 
 "That is very kind of you. But she will 
 not have any of her own money to spend ? In 
 her own purse ? To fling into the gutter if 
 she chooses? " 
 
 The prince laughed gayly. " How American 
 you are, gracious lady ! A German wife does 
 not ask for her own purse. My wife will 
 cease to be American ; she will be German," 
 
io8 
 
 patting his soft hands ecstatically. " But you 
 have not told me the name of her guardian? " 
 
 " Lucy," said Miss Vance reluctantly, " is of 
 age. She has full control of her property. A 
 Trust Company manages it for her, but they 
 have no authority to stop her if she chooses to 
 throw it into the gutter." 
 
 The prince looked up sharply. Could this 
 be a trick ? But if it were, the agent would 
 find out for him. He rose. 
 
 " To have the sole disposal of her own hand 
 and of her fortune? That seems strange to 
 us," he said, smiling. "But I have your con 
 sent, most dear lady, to win both, if I can ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, prince. If you can." 
 
 He took her hand and bowed profoundly 
 over it, but no courtly grace nor words could 
 bring back Clara s awe of him. She had a 
 vague impression that the Weir baker had 
 been wrangling with her about his bill. 
 
 "Your Highness has asked a good many 
 questions," she said. " May I put one to you ? 
 Did you inquire concerning Miss Hassard s 
 dot, also ? " 
 
 "Ah, certainly! Why not? It is very 
 large. I have spoken of it to my cousin Count 
 
log 
 
 Odo. But the drawback her father still 
 lives. He may marry again. Her dot de 
 pends upon his good pleasure. Whereas Miss 
 Dunbar is an orphan ; and besides that, she is 
 so dear to me ! " clasping his hands, his face 
 red with fervor. " So truly dear ! " 
 
 And she knew that he honestly meant it. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 WHEN Miss Vance came into the corridor 
 after she had reported this interview to Lucy, 
 Jean swept her into her room and dragged the 
 whole story from her. In fact the poor anx 
 ious lady was glad to -submit it to the girl s 
 shrewd hard sense. 
 
 " You told him that she was the uncontrolled 
 mistress of her money ! " 
 
 " It is the truth. I had to tell him the 
 truth, my dear." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so, for he would have found 
 it out anyhow." 
 
 " I do feel," panted Clara, " as if I had put a 
 dove into the claws of a vulture." 
 
 "Not at all," said Jean promptly. "The 
 little man has a heart, but an empty pocket. 
 Was Lucy interested most in his love or his 
 bargaining? " 
 
 " In neither, I think. She just went on 
 painting, and said nothing." 
 
 " Oh, she will decide the matter in time ! 
 
Ill 
 
 She will bring her little intellect to bear on it 
 as if it were a picnic for her Sunday-school 
 class ! " Jean stood silent a while. " Miss 
 Vance," she said suddenly, " let me engineer 
 this affair for a few days. I can help you." 
 
 " What do you propose to do, Jean ? " 
 
 " To leave Bozen to-morrow. For Munich." 
 
 " But the Wolfburghs have a palace or 
 something in Munich. Is it quite delicate for 
 us " 
 
 " It is quite rational. Let us see what the 
 something is. So far in our dealings with 
 principalities and powers, we have had a stout 
 little man with no background." 
 
 The prince was startled when he was told of 
 this sudden journey, but declared that he would 
 follow them to-morrow. 
 
 Lucy, as usual, asked no questions, but 
 calmly packed her satchel. 
 
 As the little train, the next day, lumbered 
 through the valley of the Eisach, she sat in 
 her corner, reading a newspaper. Miss Vance 
 dozed, or woke with a start to lecture on points 
 of historic interest. 
 
 "Why don t you look, Lucy? That mon 
 astery was a Roman fortress in the third cen- 
 
112 
 
 tury. And you are missing the color effects of 
 the vineyards." 
 
 " I can look now. I have finished my paper." 
 Lucy folded it neatly and replaced it in her 
 bag. " I have read the Delaware State Sun," 
 she said triumphantly, " regularly, every week 
 since we left home. When I go back I shall 
 be only seven days behind with the Wilming 
 ton news." 
 
 Jean glanced at her contemptuously. 
 " Look at that great castle on yonder moun 
 tain," she said. " You could lodge a village 
 inside of the ramparts. Do you think Wolf- 
 burgh Schloss is like that ? The prince told us 
 last night, " turning to Miss Vance, " the old 
 legends about his castle. The first Wolfburgh 
 was a Titan about the time of Noah, and mar 
 ried a human wife, and with his hands tore 
 open the mountain for rocks to lay the founda 
 tion of his house. According to his story 
 there were no end of giants and trolls and 
 kings concerned in the building of it," she 
 went on, furtively watching the deepening 
 pink in Lucy s cheek. "The Wolfburgh of 
 Charlemagne s day was besieged by him, and 
 another entertained St. Louis and all his cru- 
 
saders within the walls." Jean s voice rose 
 shrilly and her eyes glowed. She leaned for 
 ward, looking eagerly across the fields. " The 
 prince told us that the Schloss of his race had 
 for centuries been one of the great fortresses 
 of Christendom. And here it is ! Now we 
 shall see we shall see ! " 
 
 The car stopped. The guard opened the 
 door and Miss Vance and Lucy suddenly found 
 themselves swept by Jean on to the platform, 
 while the little train rumbled on down the 
 valley. Miss Vance cried out in dismay. 
 
 " Never mind. There will be another train in 
 a half hour," said Jean. " Here is the Schloss," 
 pointing to a pepper-box tower neatly white 
 washed, which rose out of a huge mass of 
 broken stone. " And here, I suppose, is the 
 capital of the kingdom over which the Wolf- 
 burghs now reign feudal lords? " 
 
 Clara found herself against her will looking 
 curiously at the forge, the dirty shop, the tiny 
 bier-halle, and a half a dozen huts, out of 
 which swarmed a few old women and children. 
 
 " Where are the men of this village ? " Jean 
 demanded of the station master, a stout old 
 man with a pipe in his mouth. 
 
 8 
 
" Gone to America, for the most part," he 
 said, with a shrug. 
 
 Lucy came up hastily, an angry glitter in 
 her soft eyes. " You have no right to make 
 me play the spy in this way ! " she said 
 haughtily, and going into the little station sat 
 down with her back to the door. 
 
 "You? It is I I " muttered Jean 
 
 breathlessly. "And who lives in the tower, 
 my good man? It is not big enough for a 
 dozen hens." She slipped a florin into his 
 hand. 
 
 " Four of the noble ladies live there. The 
 princesses. The gracious sisters of Furst Hugo. 
 There come two of them now." 
 
 A couple of lean, wrinkled women dressed 
 in soiled merino gowns and huge black 
 aprons, their hair bristling in curl papers, 
 crossed the road, peering curiously at the 
 strangers. 
 
 " They came to look at you, Fraulein," said 
 the man, chuckling. " Strangers do not stop at 
 Wolfburgh twice in the year." 
 
 " And what do the noble ladies do all the 
 year?" 
 
 " Jean, Jean ! " remonstrated Clara. 
 
" Oh, Miss Vance ! This is life and death to 
 some of us ! What do they do ? " 
 
 "Do?" said the man, staring. "What 
 shall any gracious lady do ? They cook and 
 brew, and crochet lace and " 
 
 " Are there any more princesses sisters of 
 Furst Hugo?" 
 
 " Two more. They live in Munich. No, 
 none of them are married. Because," he added 
 zealously, " there are no men as high-born as 
 our gracious ladies, so they cannot marry." 
 
 " No doubt that accounts for it," said Jean. 
 " Six. These are * the channels into which the 
 income will flow/ hey ? " She gave him more 
 money, and marching into the station caught 
 Lucy by the shoulder, shaking her passion 
 ately. " Do you think any American girl 
 could stand that? How would you like to 
 be caged up in that ridiculous tower to cook 
 and crochet and brew beer and watch the train 
 go by for recreation ? The year round the 
 year round ? " 
 
 Lucy rose quietly. " The train is coming 
 now," she said. " Calm yourself, Jean. You 
 will not have to live in the tower." 
 
 Jean laughed. When they were seated in 
 
n6 
 
 the car again, she looked wistfully out at the 
 heaps of ruins. 
 
 " It must have been a mighty fortress once," 
 she said. " Those stones were hewed before 
 Charlemagne s time. And a great castle could 
 easily be built with them now," she added 
 thoughtfully. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE travellers entered Munich at noon. 
 The great generous city lay tranquil and smil 
 ing in the frosty sunlight. 
 
 " I have secured apartments," said Miss 
 Vance, " used hitherto by royalties or Amer 
 ican millionaires. My girl must be properly 
 framed when a prince comes a-wooing." 
 
 Lucy smiled. But her usual warm color 
 faded as they drove through the streets. 
 Jean, however, was gay and eager. 
 
 "Ah, the dear splendid town !" she cried. 
 " It always seems to give us a royal welcome. 
 Nothing is changed ! There is the music in 
 the Keller -s, and there go the same Bavarian 
 officers with their swagger and saucy blue 
 eyes. They are the handsomest men in 
 Europe ! And here is the Miinchen-kindl 
 laughing at us, and the same crowds are going 
 to the Pinakothek ! What do you want more ? 
 Beer and splendor and fun and art ! What a 
 home it will be for you, Lucy ! " 
 
n8 
 
 Lucy s cold silence did not check Jean s 
 affectionate zeal. She anxiously searched 
 among the stately old buildings, which they 
 passed, for the Wolfburgh palace. " It will 
 not be in these commonplace Haussmannized 
 streets," she said. " It is in some old corner ; 
 it has a vast, mysterious, feudal air, I fancy. 
 You will hold a little court in it, and sometimes 
 let a poor American artist from Pond City in 
 to hang on the edge of the crowd and stare at 
 the haute noblesse." 
 
 " Don t be absurd, Jean," said Miss Vance. 
 
 " I am quite serious. I think an American 
 girl like Lucy, with her beauty and her money, 
 will be welcomed by these German nobles as a 
 white swan among ducks. She ought to take 
 her place and hold it." Jean s black eyes 
 snapped and the blood flamed up her cheeks. 
 " If I were she I d make my money tell ! I d 
 buy poor King Ludwig s residence at Binder- 
 hof, with the cascades and jewelled peacocks 
 and fairy grottos, for my country seat. The 
 Bavarian nobility are a beggarly lot. If they 
 knew that Lucy and her millions were coming 
 to town in this cab, they d blow their trumpets 
 for joy. Wave, Munich, all thy banners 
 
iig 
 
 wave ! " Lucy s impatient shrug silenced her, 
 but she was preoccupied and excited through 
 out the day. Miss Vance watched her curi 
 ously. Could it be that she had heard of the 
 prince s plan of marrying her to his cousin, 
 and that she was building these air castles for 
 herself ? 
 
 A day or two sufficed to make Miss Vance s 
 cheery apartments the rendezvous of troops of 
 Americans of all kinds : from the rich lounger, 
 bored by the sight of pictures, which he did 
 not understand, and courts which he could not 
 enter, to the half-starved, eager-eyed art stu 
 dents, who smoked, and drank beer, and chat 
 tered in gutturals, hoping to pass for Germans. 
 
 There were plenty of idle young New Yorkers 
 and Bostonians too, hovering round Lucy and 
 Jean, overweighted by their faultless London 
 coats and trousers and fluent French. But they 
 deceived nobody ; they all had that nimble 
 brain, and that unconscious swagger of impor 
 tance and success which stamps the American 
 in every country. Prince Hugo, in his old 
 brown suit, came and went quietly among them. 
 
 " The genuine article ! " Jean declared loudly. 
 
120 
 
 " There is something royal in his hospitality ! 
 He lays all Munich at Lucy s feet, as if it were 
 his own estate, and the museums and palaces 
 were the furniture of his house. That homely 
 simplicity of his is tremendously fine, if she 
 could understand it ! " 
 
 The homely genuineness had its effect even 
 upon Lucy. The carriage which he brought 
 to drive them to Isar-anen was scaly with age, 
 but the crest upon it was the noblest in Ba 
 varia ; in the cabinet of portraits of ancient 
 beauties in the royal palace he showed her 
 indifferently two or three of his aunts and 
 grandmothers, and in the historical picture of 
 the anointing of the great Charlemagne, one 
 of his ancestors, stout and good-humored as 
 Hugo himself, supported the emperor. 
 
 " The pudgy little man," said Jean one day, 
 " somehow belongs to the old world of knights 
 and crusaders Sintram and his companions. 
 He will make it all real to Lucy when she 
 marries him. He is like Ali Baba, standing 
 at the shut door of the cave full of jewels and 
 treasures with the key in his hand." 
 
 " Those Arabian Night stories are simply 
 silly," said Lucy severely. " I am astonished 
 
121 
 
 that any woman in this age of the world should 
 read that kind of trash." 
 
 " But the prince s cave ? " persisted Jean. 
 " When are we to look into it ? I want to be 
 sure of the treasures inside. When are we 
 to go to his palace ? When will his sisters 
 ask us to dinner ? " 
 
 Miss Vance looked anxious. " That is a 
 question of great importance," she said. " The 
 princesses have invited me through their 
 brother to call. It is of course etiquette here 
 for the stranger to call first, but I don t wish 
 to compromise Lucy by making advances." 
 
 There was a moment s silence, then Lucy 
 said, blushing and faltering a little, " It would 
 be better perhaps to call, and not prejudice 
 them, by any discourtesy, against us. The 
 prince is very kind." 
 
 " So ! The wind is in that quarter ? " Jean 
 said, with a harsh laugh. 
 
 She jumped up and went to her own room. 
 She was in a rage at herself. Why had she 
 not run away to Paris months ago and begun 
 her great picture of the World s mother, Eve ? 
 There was a career for her ! And thinking 
 perhaps of Eve she cried hot salt tears. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 A WEEK passed, but the question of the 
 first call was not yet settled. It required as 
 much diplomacy as an international difficulty. 
 Fiirst Hugo represented the princesses as 
 " burning with impatience to behold the en- 
 gelreine Madclien whom they hoped to em 
 brace as a sister," but no visible sign of their 
 ardor reached Miss Vance. 
 
 On Monday Jean went to spend the day 
 with some of her artist friends, but at noon 
 she dashed into the room where Clara and 
 Lucy sat sewing, her dark face blotched red, 
 and her voice stuttering with excitement. 
 
 " I have seen into the cave ! " she shouted. 
 " I have got at the truth ! It s a rather stagy 
 throne, the Wolfburghs ! Plated, cheap ! " 
 
 " What is the matter with you ? " said Miss 
 Vance. 
 
 " Nothing is the matter with me. It is 
 Lucy s tragedy. I ve seen the magnificent 
 ancient palace of the Wolfburghs. It is a flat! 
 
123 
 
 In the very house where I went to-day. The 
 third story flat just under the attics where 
 the poor Joneses daub portraits. I passed the 
 open doors and I saw the shabby old tables 
 and chairs and the princesses two fat old 
 women in frowzy wrappers, and their hair in 
 papers, eating that soup of pork and cabbages 
 and raisins the air was thick with the smell ! 
 And that is not the worst ! " 
 
 " Take breath, Jean," said Lucy calmly. 
 
 " The prince himself the Joneses told me, 
 there can be no doubt the prince makes 
 soap for a living ! No wonder you turn pale, 
 Miss Vance. Soap ! He is the silent partner 
 in the firm of Woertz und Zimmer, and it is 
 not a paying business either." 
 
 Jean did not wait for an answer, but walked 
 up and down the room, laughing angrily to 
 herself. " Yes, soap ! He cannot sneer at 
 Lucy s ancestral saddles, now. Nor my 
 father s saws ! His rank is the only thing he 
 has to give for Lucy s millions, and now she 
 knows what it is worth ! " 
 
 Lucy rose and, picking up her work basket, 
 walked quietly out of the room. Jean flashed 
 an indignant glance after her. 
 
124 
 
 " She might have told me that he gave him- 
 self! Surely the man counts for something! 
 Anyhow, rank like his is not smirched by 
 poverty or trade. Bismarck himself brews 
 beer." 
 
 " Your temper is contradictory to-day," said 
 Clara coldly. " Did you know," she said 
 presently, " that the princesses will be at the 
 Countess von Amte s to-morrow ? " 
 
 "Then we shall meet them!" cried Jean. 
 "Then something will be settled." 
 
 Lucy locked the door of her chamber after 
 her. She found much comfort in the tiny bare 
 room with its white walls and blue stove, and 
 the table where lay her worn Bible and a 
 picture of her old home. The room seemed a 
 warm home to her now. Above the wall she 
 had hung photographs of the great Madonnas, 
 and lately she had placed one of Frances 
 Waldeaux among them. That was the face 
 on which she looked last at night. When 
 Clara had noticed it, Lucy had said, " I am as 
 fond of the dear lady as if she were my own 
 mother." 
 
 She sat down before it now, and taking out 
 her sewing began to work, glancing up at it, 
 
125 
 
 half smiling as to a friend who talked to her. 
 She thought of Fiirst Hugo boiling soap, with 
 a gentle pity, and of Jean with hot disdain. 
 What had Jean to do with it ? The prince was 
 her own lover, as her gloves were her own. 
 
 But indeed, the prince and love were but 
 shadows on the far sky line to the little girl ; 
 the real things were her work and her Bible, 
 and George s mother talking to her. She 
 often traced remembered expressions on Mrs. 
 Waldeaux s face ; the gayety, the sympathy, a 
 strange foreboding in the eyes. Finer mean 
 ings, surely, than any in the features of these 
 immortal insipid Madonnas! 
 
 Sometimes Lucy could not decide whether 
 she had seen these meanings on Frances Wal 
 deaux s face, or on her son s. 
 
 She sewed until late in the afternoon. 
 There came a tap at the door. She opened 
 it, and there stood Mrs. Waldeaux, wrapped in 
 a heavy cloak. Lucy jumped at her, trem 
 bling, and hugged her. 
 
 " Oh, come in ! Come in ! " she cried 
 shrilly. " I have just been thinking of you 
 and talking to you ! " 
 
 Frances laughed, bewildered. " Oh, it is 
 
126 
 
 Miss Dunbar? The man sent me here by 
 mistake to wait. Miss Vance is out, he 
 said." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so. But I I am here." 
 Lucy threw her arms around her again, laying 
 her head down on her shoulder. She felt as if 
 something that she had waited for a long time 
 was coming to her. " Sit by the stove. Your 
 hands are like ice," she said. 
 
 " Yes, I am usually cold now ; I don t know 
 why." 
 
 Lucy then saw a curious change in her 
 face. The fine meanings were not in it now. 
 It was fatter coarser ; the hair was dead, the 
 eyes moved sluggishly, like the glass eyes of a 
 doll. 
 
 " You are always cold ? Your blood is thin, 
 perhaps. You are overtired, dear. Have you 
 travelled much?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ! all of the time. I have seen whole 
 tracts of pictures, and no end of palaces and 
 hotels hotels hotels ! " Frances said, awaken 
 ing to the necessity of being talkative and 
 vivacious with the young girl. She threw off 
 her cloak. There was a rip in the fur, and 
 the dirty lining hung out. Lucy shuddered. 
 
127 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux s blood must have turned to 
 water, or she would never have permitted 
 that ! 
 
 " You must rest now. I will take care of 
 you," she said, with a little nod of authority. 
 Frances looked at her perplexed. Why should 
 this pretty creature mother her with such 
 tenderness ? 
 
 Oh ! It was the girl that George should 
 have married ! 
 
 She glanced at the white room with its 
 dainty bibelots, the Bible, the Madonnas, 
 watching, benign. Poor little nun, waiting for 
 the love that never could come to her ! 
 
 " I am glad you are here, my child. You 
 can tell me what I want to know. I have not 
 an hour to spare. I am going to my son to 
 George. Do you know where he is ? " 
 
 " At Vannes, in Brittany." 
 
 " Brittany that is a long way." Frances 
 rose uncertainly. " I hoped he was near. I 
 was in a Russian village, and Clara s letter was 
 long in finding me. When I got it, I travelled 
 night and day. I somehow thought I should 
 meet him on the way. I fancied he would 
 come to meet me." 
 
128 
 
 Lucy s blue eyes watched her keenly a 
 moment. Then she rang the bell. 
 
 " You must eat, first of all," she said. 
 
 " No, I am not hungry. Vannes, you said ? 
 I must go now. I haven t an hour." 
 
 "You have two, exactly. You ll take the 
 express at eight. Oh, I m never mistaken 
 about a train. Here is the coffee. Now, I ll 
 make you a nice sandwich." 
 
 Frances was faint with hunger. As she ate, 
 she watched the pretty matter-of-fact little 
 girl, and laughed with delight. When had she 
 found any thing so wholesome ? It was a 
 year, too, since she had seen any one who 
 knew George. Naturally, she began to empty 
 her heart, which was full of him, to Lucy. 
 
 " I have not spoken English for months," 
 she said, smiling over her coffee. " It is a 
 relief ! And you are a friend of my son s, too ? " 
 
 " No. A mere acquaintance," said Lucy, 
 with reserve. 
 
 " No one could even see George and not 
 understand how different he is from other 
 men." 
 
 " Oh ! altogether different ! " said Lucy. 
 
 " Yes, you understand. And there was that 
 
I2 9 
 
 future before him when his trouble came. 
 Oh, I ve thought of it, and thought of it, until 
 my head is tired ! He fell under that woman s 
 influence, you see. It was like mesmerism, or 
 the voodoo curse that the negroes talk of. It 
 came on me too. Why, there was a time 
 when I despised him. George ! " Her eyes 
 grew full of horror. " I left him, to live my 
 own life. He has staggered under his burden 
 alone, and I could have rid him of it. Now 
 there are two of them." 
 
 " Two of them ? " said Lucy curiously. 
 
 " There is a baby Pauline Felix s grandson. 
 I beg your pardon, my child, I ought not to 
 have named her. She is not a person whom 
 you should ever hear of. He has them both, 
 George. He has that weight to carry." 
 She stood up. " That is why I am going to 
 him. It must be taken from him." 
 
 " You mean a divorce ? " 
 
 " I don t know I can t think clearly. But 
 God does such queer things ! There are mill 
 ions of men in the world, and this curse falls 
 on George ! " 
 
 Lucy put her hands on the older woman s 
 arms and seated her. " Mrs. Waldeaux," she 
 
 9 
 
130 
 
 said, with decision, " you need sleep, or you 
 would not talk in that way. Lisa is not a 
 curse. Nor a voodoo witch. She came to 
 your son instead of to any other man because 
 he chose her out from all other women. He 
 had seen them." She held her curly head 
 erect. " As he did choose her, he should make 
 the best of her." 
 
 Frances looked at her as one awakened out 
 of a dream. " You talk sensibly, child. Per 
 haps you are right. But I must go. Ring for 
 a cab, please. No, I will wait in the station. 
 Clara would argue and lecture. I could not 
 stand that to-night," with her old comical 
 shrug. 
 
 Lucy s entreaties were vain. 
 
 But as the train rushed through the valley 
 of the Isar that night, Frances looked forward 
 into the darkness with a nameless terror. 
 "That child was so healthy and sane," she 
 said, " I wish I had stayed with her longer." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 PRINCE HUGO had made no secret of his 
 intentions with regard to Miss Dunbar, so that 
 when it was known that his sisters and the 
 rich American Mees would at last meet at the 
 Countess von Amte s there was a flutter of curi 
 osity in the exclusive circle of Munich. The 
 countess herself called twice on Clara that day, 
 so great was her triumph that this social event 
 would occur at her house. 
 
 She asked boldly " Which of Miss Dunbar s 
 marvellous Parisian confections will she wear? 
 It is so important for her future happiness 
 that the princesses should be favorably im 
 pressed ! Aber, lieber Gott!" she shrieked, 
 " don t let her speak French ! Not a word! 
 That would be ruin ! They are all patriotism ! " 
 She hurried away, and ran back to say that 
 the sun was shining as it had not done for 
 days. 
 
 " She thinks nature itself is agog to see how 
 the princesses receive Lucy," said Miss Vance 
 
132 
 
 indignantly. " One would suppose that the 
 child was on trial." 
 
 " So she is. Me, too," said Jean, wistfully 
 regarding the be"b waist of the gown which 
 Doucet had just sent her. " I must go as an 
 ingenue. I don t play the part well ! " 
 
 " No, you do not," said Clara. 
 
 Miss Vance tapped at Lucy s door as she 
 went down, and found her working at her 
 embroidery. "You must lie down for an 
 hour, my dear," she said, " and be fresh and 
 rosy for this evening." 
 
 " I am not going. I must finish these pinks. 
 I have just sent a note of apology to the 
 countess." 
 
 "Not going!" Clara gasped, dismayed. 
 Then she laughed with triumph. "The 
 princesses and all the Herrschaft of Munich 
 will be there to pass judgment on the bride, 
 and the bride will be sitting at home finishing 
 her pinks ! Good ! " 
 
 " I am no bride ! " Lucy rose, stuck her 
 needle carefully in its place, and came closer to 
 Miss Vance. " I have made up my mind," she 
 said earnestly. " I shall never marry. My life 
 now is quiet and clean. I m not at all sure 
 
133 
 
 that it would be either if I were the Princess 
 Wolfburgh." 
 
 Clara stroked her hair fondly. "Your de 
 cision is sudden, my dear," she faltered, at 
 last. 
 
 "Yes. There was something last night. It 
 showed me what I was doing. To marry a 
 man just because he is good and kind, that 
 is vile ! " The tears rushed to her eyes. 
 There was a short silence. 
 
 " Don t look so aghast, dear Miss Vance," 
 said Lucy cheerfully. " Go now and dress to 
 meet the Herrschaft." 
 
 " And what will you do, child ? " 
 
 " I really must finish these pinks to-night." 
 She took up her work. Her chin trembled a 
 little. " We won t speak of this again, please," 
 she said. " I never shall be a bride or a wife 
 or mother. I will have a quiet, independent 
 life like yours." 
 
 The sunshine fell on the girl s grave, uplifted 
 face, on the white walls, the blue stove, and 
 the calm, watching Madonnas. Clara, as Mrs. 
 Waldeaux had done, thought of a nun in her 
 cell to whom love could only be a sacred 
 dream. 
 
134 
 
 She smiled back at Lucy, bade her good 
 night, and closed the door. 
 
 " Like mine ? " she said, as she went down 
 the corridor. " Well, it is a comfortable, quiet 
 
 life. But empty " And she laid her hand 
 
 suddenly across her thin breast. 
 
 Jean listened in silence when Clara told her 
 briefly that Lucy was not going. 
 
 " She is very shrewd," she said presently. 
 " She means to treat them de haut en has from 
 the outset. It is capital policy." 
 
 Jean, when she entered the countess s salon, 
 with downcast eyes, draped in filmy lace with 
 out a jewel or flower, was shy innocence in 
 person. Furst Hugo stood near the hostess, 
 with two stout women in shabby gowns and 
 magnificent jewels. 
 
 "The frocks they made themselves, and the 
 emeralds are heirlooms," Jean muttered to 
 Clara, without lifting her timid eyes. 
 
 "Miss Dunbar is not coming?" exclaimed 
 the prince. 
 
 " No," said Miss Vance. 
 
 " The Fraulein is ill?" demanded one of 
 his sisters. 
 
135 
 
 " No," Clara said, again smiling. 
 
 " We expected to meet her," the younger 
 princess said. " It is most singular " 
 
 " She has sent her apology to the countess," 
 said Clara gently, and passed on. 
 
 But her little triumph was short lived. 
 
 A famous professional soprano appeared in 
 a white-ribboned enclosure at the end of the 
 salon, and the guests were rapidly arranged 
 according to their rank to listen. Clara and 
 Jean stood until every man and .woman were 
 comfortably seated, when they were placed 
 in the back row. 
 
 When the music was over supper was 
 announced, and the same ceremony was 
 observed. The Highnessess, the hoch- 
 wohlgeboren privy councillors, the hochge- 
 boren secretaries, even the untitled Herren 
 who held some petty office, were ushered with 
 profound deference to their seats at the long 
 table, while Clara stood waiting. Jean s eyes 
 still drooped meekly, but even her lips were 
 pale. 
 
 " How can you look so placid ? " she whis 
 pered. " It is a deliberate insult to your gray 
 hairs." 
 
I 3 6 
 
 " No. It is the custom of the country. It 
 does not hurt me." 
 
 They were led at the moment to the lowest 
 seats. Jean shot one vindictive glance around 
 the table. 
 
 " You have more wit and breeding than any 
 of them ! " she said. " And as for me, this 
 lace I wear would buy any of their rickety old 
 palaces." 
 
 "They have something which we cannot 
 buy," said Miss Vance gravely. " I never 
 understood before how actual a thing rank is 
 here." 
 
 "Cannot it be bought? I am going to look 
 into that when this huge feed is over," Miss 
 Hassard said to herself. 
 
 Late in the evening she danced with Count 
 Odo, and prattled to him in a childish, frank 
 fashion which he found very charming. 
 
 " Your rules of precedence are very disagree 
 able !" she pouted. " Especially when one sits 
 at the foot of the table and is served last." 
 
 " They must seem queer to you," he said, 
 laughing, " but they are inflexible as iron." 
 
 " But they will bend for Miss Dunbar, if she 
 makes up her mind to marry your cousin ? " 
 
137 
 
 she asked, looking up into his face like an inno 
 cent child. 
 
 " No. Hugo makes a serious sacrifice in 
 marrying a woman of no birth," he said. " He 
 must give up his place and title as head of the 
 family. She will not be received at court nor 
 in certain houses ; she must always remain out 
 side of much of his social life." 
 
 He led her back to Miss Vance. She seemed 
 to be struck dumb, and even forgot to smile 
 when he bowed low and thanked her for the 
 dance. 
 
 " Let us go home," she whispered to Clara. 
 "The American girl is a fool who marries one 
 of these men ! " 
 
 When Miss Vance s carriage reached her 
 hotel, she found Prince Hugo s coupt before 
 the door. 
 
 " He has come to see Lucy, alone ! " she 
 said indignantly, as she hurried up the steps. 
 " He has no right to annoy her ! " 
 
 She met him coming out of the long salle. 
 The little man walked nervously, fingering his 
 sword hilt. He could not control his voice 
 when he tried to speak naturally. 
 
 " Yes, gracious lady, I am guilty. It was 
 
138 
 
 unpardonable to come when I knew the 
 chaperone was gone. But ach! I could not 
 wait ! " throwing out both hands to her. " I 
 have waited so long ! I knew when she did 
 not come to meet my sisters to-night she had 
 resolved against me, but I could not sleep un 
 certain. So I break all the laws, and come ! " 
 
 "You have seen her, then? She has told 
 you?" 
 
 He nodded without speaking. His round 
 face was red, and something like tears stood in 
 his eyes. 
 
 He waited irresolute a moment, and then 
 threw up his head. 
 
 " Soh ! It is over ! I shall not whine ! You 
 have been very good to me," he said earnestly, 
 taking Clara s hand. " This is the first great 
 trouble in my life. I have loved her very 
 dearly. I decided to make great sacrifices for 
 her. But I am not to have her never." 
 . " I am so sorry for you, prince." Clara 
 squeezed his hand energetically. 
 
 " Nor her dot. That would have been so 
 comfortable for me," he said simply. 
 
 Clara hid a smile, and bade him an affection 
 ate good-night. 
 
I3Q 
 
 As he passed into the outer salle a childish 
 figure in creamy lace rose before him, and a 
 soft hand was held out. " I know what has 
 happened!" she whispered passionately. "She 
 has treated you scandalously ! She cannot 
 appreciate you ! " 
 
 Prince Hugo stuttered and coughed and 
 almost kissed the little hand which lay so 
 trustingly in his. He found himself safely out 
 side at last, and drove away, wretched to the 
 soul. 
 
 But below his wretchedness something whis 
 pered : " She appreciates me, and her dot is 
 quite as large." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 GEORGE WALDEAUX hummed a tune gayly 
 as he climbed the winding maze of streets in 
 Vannes, one cloudy afternoon, with Lisa. 
 
 " It is impertinent to be modern Americans 
 in this old town," he said. " We might play 
 that we were jongleurs, and that it was still 
 mediaeval times. I am sure the gray walls yon 
 der and the fortress houses in this street have 
 not changed in ages." 
 
 " Neither have the smells, apparently," said 
 Lisa grimly. "Wrap this scarf about your 
 throat, George. You coughed last night." 
 
 George tied up his throat. " Coughed, did 
 I ? " he said anxiously. He had had a cold 
 last winter, and his wife with her poultices and 
 fright had convinced him that he was a con 
 firmed invalid. The coming of her baby had 
 given to the woman a motherly feeling toward 
 all of the world, even to her husband. 
 
 " Look at these women," he said, going on 
 with his fancy presently. " I am sure that 
 
they were here wearing these black gowns and 
 huge red aprons in the twelfth century. What 
 is this ? " he said, stopping abruptly, to a boy 
 of six who was digging mud at the foot of an 
 ancient ivy-covered tower. 
 
 "C est le tour du Constable," the child 
 lisped. " Et v la, monsieur!" pointing to a 
 filthy pen with a gate of black oak ; " v la le 
 donjon de Clisson ! " 
 
 " Who was Clisson ? " said Lisa impatiently. 
 
 " A live man to Froissart and to this boy," 
 said George, laughing. " I told you that we had 
 gone back seven centuries. This fog comes in 
 from the Morbihan sea where Arthur and his 
 knights went sailing to find the Holy Greal. 
 They have not come back. And south 
 yonder is the country of the Druids. I will 
 take you to-morrow and show you twenty 
 thousand of their menhirs, and then we will 
 sail away to an island where there is an altar 
 that the serpent worshippers built ages before 
 Christ." 
 
 Lisa laughed. He was not often in this 
 playful mood. She panted as she toiled up 
 the dark little street, a step behind him, but 
 he did not think of giving her his arm. He 
 
142 
 
 had grown accustomed to regard himself as 
 the invalid now, and the one who needed 
 care. 
 
 " I am going for letters," he called back, div 
 ing into a dingy alley. The baby and its 
 bonne were near Lisa. The child never was 
 out of her sight for a moment. She waited, 
 standing a little apart from Colette to watch 
 whether the passers-by would notice the baby. 
 When one or two of the gloomy and stolid 
 women who hurried past in their wooden 
 sabots clicked their ringers to it, she could not 
 help smiling gayly and bidding them good- 
 day. 
 
 The fog was stifling. As she waited she 
 gave a tired gasp. Colette ran to her. " Ma 
 dame is going to be ill ! " 
 
 " No, no ! Don t frighten monsieur." 
 
 George came out of the gate at the 
 moment. 
 
 "Going to faint again, Lisa?" he said, with 
 an annoyed glance around the street. " Your 
 attacks do choose the most malapropos 
 times " 
 
 " Oh, dear no, George ! I am quite well 
 quite." She walked beside him with an airy 
 
143 
 
 step, laughing gayly now and then, but 
 George s frown deepened. 
 
 " I don t understand these seizures at all," 
 he said. " You seem to be in sound physical 
 condition." 
 
 " Oh, all women have queer turns, George." 
 
 " Did you consult D Abri, as I told you to 
 do, in Paris ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes ! Now let us talk no more about 
 it. I have had these symptoms since I was a 
 child." 
 
 "You never told me of them before we 
 were married," he muttered. 
 
 Lisa scowled darkly at him, but she glanced 
 at the baby and her mouth closed. Little 
 Jacques should never hear her rage nor swear. 
 
 From an overhanging gable at the street 
 corner looked down a roughly hewn stone 
 Madonna. The arms of the Holy Child were 
 outstretched to bless. Lisa paused before it, 
 crossing herself. A strange joy filled her 
 heart. 
 
 " I too am a mother ! I too ! " she said. 
 She hurried after George and clung to his arm 
 as they went home. 
 
 " Was there any letter?" she asked. 
 
144 
 
 " Only one from Munich Miss Vance. I 
 haven t opened it." 
 
 " I thought your mother would write. She 
 must have heard about the boy ! " 
 
 George s face grew dark. " No, she ll not 
 write. Nor come." 
 
 "You wish for her every day, George?" 
 She looked at him wistfully. 
 
 "Yes, I do. She and I were comrades to 
 a queer degree. I long for something hearty 
 and homelike again. See here, Lisa. I m going 
 home before my boy begins to talk. I mean 
 he shall grow up under wholesome American 
 influences not foreign." 
 
 " Not foreign," she repeated gravely. She 
 was silent a while. " I have thought much of 
 it all lately," she said at last. " It will be 
 wholesome for Jacques on your farm. Horses 
 
 dogs Your mother will love him. She 
 
 can t help it. She I acted like a beast to 
 that woman, George. I ll say that. She hit 
 me hard. But she has good traits. She is not 
 unlike my own mother." 
 
 George said nothing. God forbid that he 
 should tell her, even by a look, that she and her 
 mother were of a caste different from his own. 
 
145 
 
 But he was bored to the soul by the differ 
 ence ; he was tired of her ignorances, which 
 she showed every minute, of her ghastly, un 
 clean knowledges which she never showed. 
 
 They came into the courtyard of the Chateau 
 de la Motte, the ancient castle of the Breton 
 dukes, which is now an inn. The red sunset 
 flamed up behind the sad little town and its 
 gray old houses and spires massed on the hill, 
 and the black river creeping by. George s 
 eyes kindled at the sombre picture. 
 
 "In this very court," he said, "Constance 
 stood when she summoned the States of Brit 
 tany to save her boy Arthur from King John." 
 
 " Oh, yes, you have read of it to me in your 
 Shakespeare. It is one of his unpleasant 
 stories. Come, Bebe. It grows damp." 
 
 As she climbed the stone stairway with the 
 child, Colette lingered to gossip with the por- 
 tier. " Poor lady ! You will adore her ! She 
 is one of us. But she makes of that bete 
 Anglais and the ugly child, saints and gods! " 
 
 When George presently came up to their 
 bare little room, Lisa was singing softly, as she 
 rocked Jacques to sleep. 
 
 " Can t you sing the boy something a bit 
 
146 
 
 more cheerful ? " he said. " You used to know 
 some jolly catches from the music halls." 
 
 "Catches for him f" with a frightened look 
 at the child s shut eyes. 
 
 " The Adeste Fideles is moral, but it is not 
 a merry air. You sing it morning, noon, and 
 night," he grumbled. 
 
 "Yes," she whispered, laying the child in its 
 crib. " One never knows how much he under 
 stands, and he may remember, I thought. 
 Some day when he is a great boy, he may hear 
 it and he ll think, My mother sang that 
 hymn. She must have been a good woman ! 
 
 " Nonsense, Lisa," said George kindly. 
 "You ll teach him every day, while he is grow 
 ing to be a great boy, that you are a good 
 woman." 
 
 She said nothing, but stood on the other 
 side of the crib looking at him. 
 
 " Well, what is it ? " said George uneasily. 
 " You look at me as if somebody were drag 
 ging you away from me." 
 
 She laughed. " What ridiculous fancies you 
 have ! " She came behind him and, drawing 
 his head back, kissed him on the forehead. 
 " Oh, you poor, foolish boy ! " she said. 
 
147 
 
 Lisa sat down to her work, which was the 
 making of garments for Jacques out of her 
 own gowns. She was an expert needlewoman, 
 and had already a pile of fantastic kilts of 
 cloth and velvet. 
 
 " Enough to last until he is ten years old," 
 George said contemptuously. " And you will 
 not leave a gown for yourself." 
 
 " There will be all I shall need," she said. 
 
 He turned up the lamp and opened Clara s 
 letter. 
 
 Lisa s needle flew through the red and yel 
 low silk. It was pleasant work; she was 
 doing it skilfully. The fire warmed her thin 
 blood. She could hear the baby s regular, 
 soft breathing as it slept. A pleasure that was 
 almost like health stole through her lean body. 
 She leaned back in her chair looking at 
 Jacques. In three years he could wear the 
 velvet suit with the cap and pompon. His 
 hair would be yellow and curly, like his fath 
 er s. But his eyes would be like her mother s. 
 She pressed her hands together, laughing, the 
 hot tears rushing to her eyes. "Ah, ma- 
 man ! " she said. " Do you know that your 
 little girl has a baby ? Can you see him ? " 
 
148 
 
 What a superb " great boy " he would be ! 
 He should go to a military school. Yes! 
 She lay back in her chair, watching him. 
 
 George suddenly started up with a cry of 
 amazement. 
 
 " What is it ? " she said indifferently. 
 
 He did not answer, but turned the letter 
 and read it over again. Then he folded it 
 with shaking fingers. 
 
 " I have news here. Miss Vance thinks it 
 time that I was told, and I agree with her. It 
 appears that I am a pauper, and always have 
 been. My father died penniless." 
 
 " Then Jacques will be poor ? " 
 
 " Jacques ! You think of nothing but that 
 mewling, senseless thing! It is mother 
 she always has supported me. We are living 
 now on the money that she earns from week 
 to week, while I play that I am an artist ! " 
 
 Lisa listened attentively. " It does not 
 seem strange that a mother should work for 
 her son," she said slowly. "But she has 
 never told us ! That is fine ! I like that ! I 
 told you she had very good traits." 
 
 George stared at her. " But me ! Don t 
 you see what a cad I am ? " 
 
149 
 
 He paced up and down, muttering, and then 
 throwing on his hat went out into the night 
 to be alone. 
 
 Lisa sank back again and watched Jacques. 
 At military school, yes ; and after he had left 
 school he would be a soldier, perhaps. Such 
 a gallant young fellow ! 
 
 She leaned over the cradle, holding out her 
 hands. Ah, God ! if she could but live to 
 see it ! Surely it might be ? There was no 
 pain now. Doctors were not infallible even 
 D Abri might be mistaken, after all. 
 
 George, coming in an hour later, found her 
 sitting with her hands covering her face. 
 
 "Are you asleep, Lisa?" 
 
 -No." 
 
 "There is a telegram from Clara. My 
 mother has left Munich for Vannes. She will 
 be here in two days." 
 
 She rose with an effort. " I am glad for 
 you, George." 
 
 "You are ill, Lisa!" 
 
 " A little tired, only. Colette will give me 
 my powder, and I shall be quite well in the 
 morning. Will you send her to me now ? " 
 
 After George was gone the rumbling of a 
 
150 
 
 diligence was heard in the courtyard, and pres 
 ently a woman was brought up to the opposite 
 chamber. 
 
 The hall was dark. Looking across it, 
 Frances Waldeaux saw in the lighted room 
 Lisa and her child. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 BEFORE we come to the dark story of that 
 night in the inn, it is but fair to Frances to 
 say that she came there with no definite evil 
 purpose. She had been cheerful on her 
 journey from Munich. There was one clear 
 fact in her brain : She was on her way to 
 George. 
 
 The countless toy farms of southern 
 France, trimmed neatly by the inch, swept 
 past her. In Brittany came melancholy 
 stretches of brown heath and rain-beaten hills ; 
 or great affluent estates, the manor houses 
 covered with thatch, stagnant pools close to 
 the doors, the cattle breaking through the 
 slovenly wattled walls. Frances, being a 
 farmer, felt a vague amusement at these things, 
 but they were all dim to her as a faded land 
 scape hanging on the wall. 
 
 She was going to George. 
 
 Sometimes she seemed to be in Lucy s room 
 again, with the sweet, clean air of youth about 
 
152 
 
 her. All of that purity and love might have 
 gone into George s life before it fell into the 
 slough. 
 
 But she was going now to take it out of the 
 slough. 
 
 There was a merchant and his wife from 
 Geneva in the carriage with their little boy, a 
 pretty child of five. Frances played and joked 
 with him. 
 
 " Has madam also a son ? " his mother 
 asked civilly. 
 
 She said yes, and presently added, " My son 
 has now a great trouble, but I am going to 
 relieve him of it." 
 
 The woman, startled, stared at her. 
 
 " Is it not right for me to rid him of it ? " 
 she demanded loudly. 
 
 " Mais oui, certainement ! " said the Swiss. 
 She watched Frances after that furtively. Her 
 eyes, she thought, were quite sane. But how 
 eccentric all of these Americans were ! 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux reached Vannes at night 
 fall. At last ! Here was the place in this 
 great empty world where he was. 
 
 When the diligence entered the courtyard, 
 George was so near to the gate that the smoke 
 
153 
 
 of his cigar was blown into her face, but he did 
 not see her. He was lean and pale, and his 
 eyes told his misery. When she saw them his 
 mother grew sick from head to foot with a 
 sudden nausea. This was his wife s doing. 
 She was killing him ! Frances hurried into the 
 inn, her legs giving way under her. She could 
 not speak to him. She must think what to do. 
 
 She was taken to her room. It was dark, 
 and across the corridor she saw Lisa in her 
 lighted chamber. This was good .luck ! God 
 had put the creature at once into her hands to 
 deal with ! 
 
 She was conscious of a strange exaltation, 
 as if from wine as if she would never need to 
 sleep nor eat again. Her thoughts came and 
 went like flashes of fire. She watched Lisa 
 as she would a vampire, a creeping deadly 
 beast. Pauline Felix all that was adulter 
 ous and vile in women there it was ! 
 
 Her mind too, as never before, was full of a 
 haughty complacency in herself. She felt like 
 the member of some petty sect who is sure 
 that God communes with him inside of his 
 altar rails, while the man is outside whom he 
 believes that God made only to be damned. 
 
154 
 
 Lisa began to undress. Frances quickly 
 turned away, ashamed of peeping into her cham 
 ber. But the one fact burned on into her brain : 
 
 The woman was killing George. 
 
 If God would rid the world of her! If a 
 storm should rise now, and the lightning strike 
 the house, and these stone walls should fall on 
 her, now now ! 
 
 But the walls stood firm and the moonlight 
 shone tranquilly on the world outside. 
 
 She told herself to be calm to be just. 
 But there was no justice while this woman 
 went on with her work ! God saw. He 
 meant her to be stopped. Frances prayed to 
 him frantically that Lisa might soon be put off 
 of the earth. Just as the Catholic used to pray 
 before he massacred the Huguenot, or the 
 Protestant, when he tied his Catholic brother 
 to the stake. If this woman was mad for 
 blood, it was a madness that many sincere 
 people have shared. 
 
 Colette was busy with her mistress for a 
 long time. She was very gentle and tender, 
 being fond of Lisa, as people of her class 
 always were. She raised her voice as she 
 made ready to leave the room. 
 
155 
 
 " If the pain returns, here is the powder of 
 morphia, mixed, within madame s reach," she 
 said. 
 
 Frances came close to the door. 
 
 " And if it continues? " asked Lisa. 
 
 " Let monsieur call me. I would not trust 
 him to measure a powder," Colette said, laugh 
 ing. " It is too dangerous. He is not used to 
 it like me." 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux saw her lay a paper package 
 on a shelf. 
 
 " I will pray that the pain will not return," 
 the girl said. " But if it does, let monsieur 
 knock at my door. Here is the tisane when 
 you are thirsty." She placed a goblet of 
 milky liquid near the bed. 
 
 What more she said Frances did not hear. 
 
 It was to be ! There was the morphia, and 
 yonder the night drink within her reach. It 
 was God s will. 
 
 Colette turned out the lamp, hesitated, and 
 sat down by the fire. Presently she rose softly, 
 bent over her mistress, and, finding her asleep, 
 left the room noiselessly. Her door closed far 
 down the corridor. 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux was quite alone, now. 
 
I 5 6 
 
 It was but a step across the hall. So easy 
 to do easy. It must be done at once. 
 
 But her feet were like lead, she could not 
 move ; her tongue lay icy cold in her mouth. 
 Her soul was willing, but her body rebelled. 
 
 What folly was this ? It was the work of a 
 moment. George would be free. She would 
 have freed him. 
 
 In God s name then 
 
 She crossed the hall softly. Into the hell 
 of her thoughts flashed a little womanish 
 shame, that she, Frances Waldeaux, should be 
 walking on tiptoe, like a thief. 
 
 She took down the package, and leaning 
 over the table at the side of the bed, shook 
 the white powder into the glass. Then she 
 went back to her room and shut the door. 
 
 The casement was open and the moonlight 
 was white outside. She was conscious that 
 the glare hurt her eyes, and that ,there was a 
 strange stricture about her jaws and the base 
 of her brain, like an iron hand. 
 
 It seemed to her but a minute that she 
 stood there, but the dawn was breaking when 
 there was a sudden confusion in the opposite 
 
157 
 
 room. She heard Colette s voice, and then 
 George s, calling Lisa. 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 Frances stood up, to listen. " Will she not 
 speak ? " she cried. " Make her speak ! " 
 
 But in reality she said nothing. Even her 
 breath had stopped to listen. 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 Frances was awake now, for the rest of her 
 life. She knew what she had done. 
 
 " Why, George," she said, " she cannot 
 speak. She is dead. I did it." 
 
 She stood in the room a minute, looking 
 from side to side, and then went with meas 
 ured steps out of it, down the corridor and 
 into the street. 
 
 " I did it," she said to herself again and 
 again, as she walked slowly on. 
 
 The old cathedral is opposite to the inn. 
 Her eyes, as she passed, rested on the gargoyles, 
 and she thought how fine they were. One 
 was a ridiculous head with lolling tongue. 
 
 A priest s voice inside was chanting mass. 
 A dozen Breton women in their huge white 
 winged caps and wooden shoes hurried up to 
 the door, through the gray fog. They met 
 
158 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux and saw her face. They 
 huddled to one side, crossing themselves, and 
 when she passed, stood still, forgetting the 
 mass and looking, frightened, up the steep 
 street behind her to find what horror had pur 
 sued her. 
 
 " They know what I have done," she said 
 aloud. 
 
 Once when she was a child she had acci 
 dentally seen a bloated wretch, a murderer, 
 on his way to the gallows. 
 
 " I am he," she thought. " I/, Frances." 
 
 Then the gargoyle came into her mind 
 again. What a capital headpiece it would 
 make for " Quigg s " next column! It was 
 time this week s jokes were sent. 
 
 But at last these ghosts of yesterday s life 
 faded out, and she saw the fact. 
 
 She had hated her son s wife and had killed 
 her! 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 WHEN the sun was well up the women who 
 had been at mass gathered down by the little 
 river which runs through the old city, to wash 
 their clothes. They knelt on the broad stones 
 by the edge of the water, chattering and sing 
 ing, tossing the soap from one to another. 
 
 There was a sudden silence. " Here she is 
 again," they whispered, as a slight, delicate 
 woman crossed the bridge with steady steps. 
 
 " She is blind and deaf," said old Barbe. " I 
 met her an hour ago and asked her whom she 
 sought. She did not see nor hear me, but 
 walked straight on." 
 
 Oliver Bauzy was lounging near, as usual, 
 watching his wife work. 
 
 " She is English. What does she know of 
 your Breton talk? I speak English and 
 French I ! " he bragged, and walking up to 
 Mrs. Waldeaux, he flourished his ragged hat, 
 smiling. "Is madame ill? She has walked 
 far," he said kindly. 
 
i Co 
 
 The English words seemed to waken her. 
 " It is always the town/ looking around be 
 wildered. " The people houses. I think I 
 am not well. If I could find the woods " 
 
 Bauzy had but a hazy idea of her meaning, 
 but he nodded gravely. " She is a tourist. 
 She wants to go out of Vannes to see the 
 chateaux, the dolmens. I m her man. I ll 
 drive her to Larmor Baden," he said to his 
 wife. " I have to go there to-day, and I may as 
 well make a franc or two. Keep her until I 
 bring the voiture" 
 
 But Frances stood motionless until the old 
 wagon rattled up to the water s edge. 
 
 " She has a dear old face," Bauzy s wife 
 whispered. 
 
 "She is blind and deaf, I tell you," old 
 Barbe grumbled, peering up at her. " Make 
 her pay, Oliver, before you go." 
 
 Bauzy nodded, and when Frances was seated 
 held out his hand. 
 
 "Twenty francs," he said. 
 
 She opened her bag and gave them to him. 
 
 " She must be folle ! " he said uneasily. " I 
 feel like a thief. Away with you, Babette ! " as 
 a pretty baby ran up to him. " You want to 
 
ride? That is impossible. Unless, indeed, 
 madame desires it?" lifting the child to place 
 her on the seat. Babette laughed and held 
 out her hands. 
 
 But Mrs. Waldeaux shrank back, shuddering. 
 " Take her away," she whispered. " She must 
 not touch me! " 
 
 The mother seized the child, and the women 
 all talked vehemently at once. Oliver climbed 
 into the voiture and drove off in silence. 
 When he looked around presently he saw that 
 the woman s face was bloodless, and a cold 
 sweat stood on it. 
 
 He considered a while. " You want food," 
 he said, and brought out some hard bread and 
 a jug of Normandy cider. 
 
 Frances shook her head. She only spoke 
 once during the morning, and then told him 
 something about a woman " whom no child 
 could touch. No man or woman could touch 
 her as long as she lived. Not even her son." 
 
 As Bauzy could make nothing of this, he 
 could only nod and laugh civilly. But pres 
 ently he, too, grew silent, glancing at her 
 uncomfortably from time to time. 
 
 They drove through great red fields of sar- 
 ii 
 
l62 
 
 asson, hedged by long banks of earth, which 
 were masses of golden gorse and bronzed and 
 crimson ferns. The sun shone, the clover- 
 scented air was full of the joyous buzzing of 
 bees and chirp of birds. 
 
 " It is a gay, blessed day ! " Bauzy said, 
 " thanks to the good God ! " He waited anx 
 iously for her reply, but she stared into the 
 sunshine and said nothing. 
 
 Larmor Baden is a lonely little cluster of 
 gray stone huts on the shore of the Morbihan 
 sea. Some of Bauzy s friends lounged smiling 
 up to welcome him, waving their wide black 
 hats with velvet streamers, and bowing low to 
 the lady. Oliver alighted with decision. One 
 thing he knew : He would not drive back 
 with her. Something was amiss. He would 
 wash his hands of her. 
 
 " Here, madame, is Vincent Selo, paysa- 
 geur" he said rapidly in French. " He has a 
 good boat. He will take you where you de 
 sire. Sail with her to Gavr Inis," he said to 
 Selo, " and bring her back at her pleasure. 
 Somebody can drive her back to Vannes, and 
 don t overcharge her, you robbers ! " 
 
 " Gavr Inis?" Frances repeated. 
 
163 
 
 " It is an island in the sea yonder, madame. 
 A quiet place of trees. When there was not a 
 man in the world, evil spirits built there an 
 altar for the worship of the devil. No men 
 could have built it. There are huge stones 
 carried there from the mountains far inland, 
 that no engine could lift. It is a great 
 mystery." 
 
 " It is the one place in the world, people 
 say," interrupted Selo, lowering his voice, 
 " where God never has been. A dreadful 
 place, madame ! " 
 
 Frances laughed. " That is the place for 
 me," she said to Selo. " Take me there." 
 
 The old man looked at her with shrewd, 
 friendly eyes, and then beckoned Bauzy aside. 
 
 "Who is she? She has the bearing of a great 
 lady, but her face hurts me. What harm has 
 come to her? " 
 
 " How do I know? "said Bauzy. "Go for 
 your boat. The sea is rising." 
 
 Late in the afternoon M. Selo landed his 
 strange passenger upon the pebbly beach of 
 the accursed island. He led her up on the 
 rocks, talking, and pointing across the sea. 
 
1 64 
 
 " Beyond is the Atlantic, and on yonder 
 headland are the great menhirs of Carnac 
 thirty thousand of them, brought there before 
 Christ was born. But the Evil One loves this 
 island best of all places. It has in it the mys 
 tery of the world. Come," he said, in an awed 
 voice. " It is here." 
 
 He crossed to the hill, stooped, and entered 
 a dark cave about forty feet long, which was 
 wholly lined with huge flat rocks carved with 
 countless writhing serpents. As Frances 
 passed they seemed to stir and breathe beside 
 her, at her feet, overhead. The cave opened 
 into a sacrificial chamber. The reptiles grew 
 gigantic here, and crowded closer. Through 
 some rift a beam of melancholy light crept 
 in ; a smell of death hung in the thick, un 
 clean air. 
 
 Selo pointed to a stone altar. " It was 
 there they killed their victims," he whispered, 
 and began to pray anxiously, half-aloud. 
 When he had finished, he hurried back, beck 
 oning to her to come out. 
 
 " Go," she said. " I will stay here." 
 
 " Then I will wait outside. This is no place 
 for Christian souls. But we must return soon, 
 
165 
 
 madame. My little girl will be watching now 
 for me." 
 
 When he was gone she stood by the altar. 
 This island of Gavr Inis was one of the places 
 to which she and George had long ago planned 
 to come. She remembered the very day on 
 which they had read the legend that on this 
 altar men before the Flood had sacrificed to 
 the god of Murder. 
 
 " I am the murderer now, and George knows 
 it," she said quietly. But she was cold and 
 faint, and presently began to tremble weakly. 
 
 She went out of the cave and stood on the 
 beach. " I want to go home, George," she 
 said aloud. " I want to be Frances Waldeaux 
 again. I m sure I didn t know it was in me to 
 do that thing." 
 
 There was no answer. She was alone in the 
 great space of sky and sea. The world was so 
 big and empty, and she alone and degraded 
 in it! 
 
 " I never shall see George again. He will 
 think of me only as the woman who killed his 
 wife," she thought. 
 
 She went on blindly toward the water, and 
 stood there a long time. 
 
i66 
 
 Then, in the strait of her agony, there came 
 to Frances Waldeaux, for the first time in her 
 life, a perception that there was help for her in 
 the world, outside of her own strength. Her 
 poor tortured wits discerned One, more real 
 than her crime, or George, or the woman that 
 she had killed. It was an old, hackneyed 
 story, that He knew every man and woman in 
 the world, that He could help them. She had 
 heard it often. 
 
 Was there any thing in it? Could He help 
 her? 
 
 Slowly, the nervous twitching of her body 
 quieted, her dulled eyes cleared as if a new 
 power of sight were coming to them. 
 
 After a long time she heard steps, and Selo 
 calling. She rose. 
 
 The murder was known. They were coming 
 to arrest her. 
 
 What did it matter ? She had found 
 help. 
 
 Selo came up excitedly. 
 
 " It is another boat, English folk also, that 
 comes to arrive." 
 
 She turned and waited. 
 
 And then, coming up the hill, she saw 
 
167 
 
 George, and with him Lisa! Lisa, smiling 
 as she talked. 
 
 They ran to meet her with cries of amaze 
 ment. She staggered back on the rock. 
 
 " You are not dead ? Lisa " 
 
 " Dead ? Poor lady ! " catching her in her 
 arms. " Some water, George ! It is her head. 
 She has been too much alone." 
 
 When Frances opened her eyes she was 
 lying on the grass, her children kneeling be 
 side her. She caught Lisa s arm in both 
 hands and felt it: then she sat up. 
 
 " I must tell you what I did before you 
 speak to me." 
 
 " Not now," said Lisa. " You are not well. 
 I am going to be your nurse. The baby has 
 made me a very good nurse," and she stooped 
 again over Frances, with kind, smiling eyes. 
 
 Selo came to wile George up to the mysteri 
 ous cave, but Lisa impatiently hurried them to 
 the beach. " Caves and serpent worshippers 
 truly ! " she cried. " Why, she has not seen 
 Jacques ! " and when, in the boat, George, who 
 was greatly alarmed, tried to rouse his mother 
 from her silent stupor, Lisa said gayly, " She 
 will be herself again as soon as she sees him." 
 
i68 
 
 When they reached Larmor Baden, she de 
 spatched George in search of Colette and the 
 child, and she went into the church. It was 
 late, and the village women sat on the steps 
 gossipping in the slanting sunlight. There 
 is nothing in their lives but work and the 
 church ; and when, each day, they have finished 
 with one they go to the other. 
 
 Frances followed her. The sombre little 
 church was vacant. She touched Lisa on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 " There is something I must tell you," she 
 said. " You would not let me touch the child, 
 if you knew it." 
 
 She stooped and spoke a few sentences in a 
 vehement whisper, and then leaned back, ex 
 hausted, against the wall. 
 
 Lisa drew back. Her lips were white with 
 sudden fright, but she scanned Mrs. Wal- 
 deaux s face keenly. 
 
 "You were in Vannes last night? You 
 tried My God, I remember ! The ti 
 sane tasted queerly, and I threw it out." She 
 walked away for a moment, and then turning, 
 said, " You called my mother a vile woman once. 
 But she would not have done that thing ! " 
 
169 
 
 "No," said Frances, not raising her head. 
 " No." 
 
 Lisa stood looking at her as she crouched 
 against the wall. The fierce scorn slowly died 
 out of her eyes. She was a coarse, but a good- 
 natured, woman. An awful presence, too, 
 walked with her always now, step by step, and 
 in that dread shadow she saw the things of life 
 more justly than we do. 
 
 She took Frances by the hand at last. 
 "You were not quite yourself, I think," she 
 said quietly. " I have pushed you too hard. 
 George has told me so much about you ! If 
 we could be together for a while, perhaps we 
 should love each other a little. But there is 
 
 no time now " She turned hastily, and 
 
 threw herself down before a crucifix. 
 
 After a long time she went out to the ves 
 tibule, where she found Frances, and said, 
 with an effort to be cheerful and matter-of- 
 fact, " Come, now, let us talk like reasonable 
 people. A thing is coming to me which comes 
 to every-body. I m not one to whine. But 
 it s the child I don t think any baby ever 
 was as much to a woman as Jacques is to me. 
 I suppose God does not think I am fit to 
 
170 
 
 bring him up. Sit down and let me tell you 
 all about it." 
 
 They sat on the steps, talking in a low tone. 
 Frances cried, but Lisa s eyes were quite dry 
 and bright. She rose at last. 
 
 " You see, there will be no woman to care 
 for him, if you do not. There he is with 
 Colette." She ran down, took the baby 
 from the bonne, and laid him in Frances s 
 arms. 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux looked down at him. 
 " George s son," she whispered, " George s 
 boy!" 
 
 " He is very like George and you," Lisa 
 answered. " He is a Waldeaux." 
 
 " Yes, I see." 
 
 She held him close to her breast as they 
 drove back to Vannes. George whistled and 
 sang on the box. He was very light of heart 
 to have her with him again. 
 
 He looked impatiently at an ancient vil 
 lage through which they passed, with its 
 towers, and peasants in strange garbs, like the 
 pictures in some crusading tale. 
 
 " Now that we have mother, Lisa," he said, 
 " we ll go straight back home. I am tired of 
 
171 
 
 mediaeval times. I must get to work for this 
 youngster." 
 
 Lisa did not speak for a moment. " I 
 should like to stay in Vannes a little longer," 
 she said. " I did not tell you, but my 
 mother is buried there. That was why I 
 came ; I should like to be with her." 
 
 "Why, of course, dear. As long as you 
 like," he said affectionately. 
 
 " I will not detain you long. Perhaps only 
 a week or two," she said. 
 
 He nodded, and began to whistle cheer 
 fully again. Frances looked at Lisa, and 
 her eyes filled with tears. It was a pitiful 
 tragedy ! 
 
 But the poor girl was quite right not to 
 worry George until the last moment. She was 
 blocking his way ruining his life, and God 
 was taking her away so that she could no 
 longer harm him. 
 
 And yet poor Lisa ! 
 
 They drove on. The sun warmed the crim 
 son fields, and the birds chirped, and this was 
 George s child creeping close to her breast. 
 It stirred there a keen pang of joy. 
 
 Surely He had forgiven her. 
 
172 
 
 A month later a group of passengers in deep 
 mourning stood apart on the deck of the Paris 
 as she left the dock at Liverpool. It was 
 George Waldeaux, his mother, and little 
 Jacques with his nurse. Mrs. Waldeaux was 
 looking at Clara and her girls, who were watch 
 ing her from the dock. They had come to 
 Vannes when Lisa died, and had taken care of 
 her and the baby until now. Frances had 
 cried at leaving them, but George stood with 
 his back to them moodily, looking down into 
 the black water. 
 
 " It seems but a few days since we sailed 
 from New York on the Kaiser Wilhclm" he 
 said, " and yet I have lived out all my life in 
 that time." 
 
 "All? Is there nothing left, George?" his 
 mother said gently. 
 
 " Oh, of course, you are always a good com 
 panion, and there is the child " He 
 
 paused. The fierce passions, the storms of 
 delight and pain of his life with Lisa rushed 
 back on him. " I will work for others, and 
 wear out the days as I can," he said. " But 
 life is over for me. The story is told. There 
 are only blank pages now to the end." 
 
173 
 
 He turned his dim eyes toward the French 
 coast. She knew that they saw the little 
 bare grave on the hill in Vannes. " I wish 
 I could have seen something green growing 
 on it before I left her there alone ! " he 
 muttered. 
 
 " Her mother s grave was covered with 
 
 roses " Frances answered quickly. " They 
 
 will creep over to her. She is not alone, 
 George. I am glad she was laid by her mother. 
 She loved her dearly." 
 
 " Yes. Better than any thing on earth," he 
 responded gloomily. 
 
 A few moments later the ship swung heavily 
 around. 
 
 " We are going ! " Mrs. Waldeaux cried, 
 waving her hand. " Won t you look at Clara 
 and Lucy, George ? They have been so good 
 to us. If Lucy had been my own child, she 
 could not have been kinder to me." 
 
 Mr. Waldeaux turned and raised his crepe- 
 bound hat, looking at Lucy in her soft gray 
 gown vaguely, as he might at a white gull 
 dropped on the shore. 
 
 " I suppose I never shall see her again," said 
 his mother. "Clara tells me she is besieged 
 
174 
 
 by lovers. She is going to marry a German 
 prince, probably." 
 
 " That would be a pity," George said, with a 
 startled glance back at the girl. 
 
 "Good-by, my dear!" Mrs. Waldeaux 
 leaned over the bulwark. " She is beautiful as 
 an angel ! Good-by, Lucy ! God bless you ! " 
 she sobbed, kissing her hand. 
 
 Mr. Waldeaux looked steadily at Lucy. 
 " How clean she is ! " he said. 
 
 When the shore was gone he walked down 
 the deck, conscious of a sudden change in him 
 self. He was wakening out of an ugly dream. 
 The sight of the healthy little girl, with her 
 dewy freshness and blue eyes, full of affection 
 and common sense, cheered and heartened him. 
 He did not know what was doing it, but he 
 threw up his head and walked vigorously. 
 The sun shone and the cold wind swept him 
 out into a dim future to begin a new life. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 GEORGE WALDEAUX took his mother and 
 boy back to the old homestead in Delaware. 
 They arrived at night, and early the next 
 morning he rowed away in his bateau to some 
 of his old haunts in the woods on the bay, and 
 was seen no more that day. 
 
 " He is inconsolable ! " his mother told 
 some of her old neighbors who crowded to 
 welcome her. " His heart is in that grave in 
 Vannes." 
 
 The women listened in surprise, for Frances 
 was not in the habit of exploiting her emotions 
 in words. 
 
 " We understood," said one of them, with a 
 sympathetic shake of the head, "that it was 
 a pure love match. Mrs. George Waldeaux, 
 we heard, was a French artist of remarkable 
 beauty?" 
 
 Frances moved uneasily. " I never thought 
 her but I can t discuss Lisa ! " She was silent 
 a moment. " But as for her social position " 
 
176 
 
 she drew herself up stiffly, fixing cold defiant 
 eyes on her questioner " as for her social 
 position," she went on resolutely, " she was de 
 scended on one side from an excellent Ameri 
 can family, and on the other from one of the 
 noblest houses in Europe." 
 
 When they were gone she hugged little 
 Jacques passionately as he lay on her lap. 
 " That is settled for you ! " she said. 
 
 When George came back in the evening, he 
 found her walking with the boy in her arms on 
 the broad piazzas. 
 
 " I really think he knows that he has come 
 home, George ! " she exclaimed. " See how he 
 laughs ! And he liked the dogs and horses just 
 as Lisa thought he would. I am glad it is such 
 a beautiful home for him. Look at that slope 
 to the bay ! There is no nobler park in 
 England ! And the house is as big as most of 
 their palaces, and much more comfortable ! " 
 
 "Give the child to Colette, mother, and 
 listen to me. Now that I have settled you 
 and him here, I must go and earn your 
 living." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 She followed him into the hall. 
 
177 
 
 " I leave you to-morrow. There is no time 
 to be lost." 
 
 " You are going back to art, George ? " 
 
 " No ! Never ! " 
 
 Frances grew pale. She thought she had 
 torn open his gaping wound. 
 
 " I did not mean to remind you of of " 
 
 " No, it isn t that ! " 
 
 He scowled at the fire. Art meant for him 
 his own countless daubs, and the sickening 
 smell of oily paints and musk, and soiled silk 
 tea gowns, and the whole slovenly, disreput 
 able scramble of Bohemian life in Paris. 
 
 " I loathe art ! " he said, with a furious 
 blow at the smouldering log in the fireplace, 
 as if he struck these things all down into the 
 ashes with it. 
 
 " Will you go back into the Church, dear?" 
 his mother ventured timidly. 
 
 " Most certainly, no ! " he said vehemently. 
 " Of all mean frauds the perfunctory priest is 
 the meanest. If I could be like one of the old 
 holy gospellers then indeed ! " 
 
 He was silent a moment, and then began to 
 stride up and down the long hall, his head 
 thrown back, his chest inflated. 
 
 12 
 
178 
 
 " I have a message for the world, mother." 
 
 "I am sure of it," she interrupted eagerly. 
 
 "But I must deliver it in my own way. I 
 have lost two years. I am going to put in big 
 strokes of work now. In the next two years 
 I intend to take my proper place in my 
 own country. I will find standing room for 
 George Waldeaux," with a complacent smile. 
 "And in the meantime, of course, I must 
 make money enough to support you and the 
 boy handsomely. So you see, mother," he 
 ended, laughing, " I have no time to lose." 
 
 " No, George ! " It was the proudest 
 moment of her life. How heroic and gener 
 ous he was ! 
 
 She filled his pocket-book the next day, 
 when he went to New York to take the world 
 by the throat. It was really not George 
 Waldeaux s fault that she filled it. 
 
 Nor was it his fault that during the next two 
 years the world was in no hurry to run to his 
 feet, either to learn of him, or to bring him its 
 bags of gold. The little man did his best ; he 
 put his " message," as he called it, into poems, 
 into essays, into a novel. Publishers thanked 
 him effusively for the pleasure of reading 
 
179 
 
 them, and sent them back. The only word 
 of his which reached the public was a review 
 of the work of a successful author. It was so 
 personal, so malignant, that George, when he 
 read it, writhed with shame and humiliation. 
 He tore the paper into fragments. 
 
 " Am I so envious and small as that ! 
 Before God, no words of mine shall ever go into 
 print again ! " he said, and he kept his word. 
 
 He came down every month or two to his 
 mother. 
 
 " Why not try teaching, George ? " she said 
 anxiously. "These great scholars and scien 
 tific men have places and reputations which 
 even you need not despise." 
 
 He laughed bitterly. " I tried for a place 
 as tutor in a third-class school, and could not 
 pass the examinations. I know nothing accu 
 rately. Nothing." 
 
 It occurred to him to go inter politics and 
 help reform the world by routing a certain 
 Irish boss. He made a speech at a ward 
 meeting, and broke down in the middle of it 
 before the storm of gibes and hootings. 
 
 " What was the matter? " he asked a friend, 
 whose face was red with laughter. 
 
i8o 
 
 " My dear fellow, you shouldn t lecture 
 them ! You re not the parson. They resent 
 your air of enormous superiority. For 
 Heaven s sake, don t speak again in this 
 campaign." 
 
 It is a wretched story. There is no need of 
 going into the details. There was no room 
 for him. He tried in desperation to get some 
 foothold in business. The times were hard 
 that winter, which of course was against him. 
 Besides, his critical, haughty air naturally did 
 not prepossess employers in his favor when he 
 came to ask for a job. 
 
 At the end of the second year the man 
 broke down. 
 
 " The work of the world," he told Frances, 
 " belongs to specialists. Even a bootblack 
 knows his trade. I know nothing. I can do 
 nothing. I am a mass of flabby pretences." 
 
 Every morlth she filled his pocket-book. 
 She found at last that he did not touch the 
 money. He sold his clothes and his jewelry 
 to keep himself alive while he tramped the 
 streets of New York looking for work. He 
 starved himself to make this money last. His 
 flesh was lead-colored from want of proper 
 
food, and he staggered from weakness. " He 
 that will not work neither let him eat, " he 
 said grimly. 
 
 It was about this time that Miss Vance came 
 home. Mrs. Waldeaux in a moment of weak 
 ness gave her a hint of his defeat. 
 
 " Is the world blind," she cried, " to deny 
 work to a man of George s capacity ? What 
 does it mean? " 
 
 Clara heard of George s sufferings with equa 
 nimity. " The truth is," she said, when she 
 told the story to Miss Dunbar, " Frances 
 brought that boy up to believe that he was a 
 Grand Llama among men. There is no work 
 for Grand Llamas in this country, and when 
 he understands that he is made of very ordi 
 nary clay indeed, he will probably be of some 
 use in the world." 
 
 Lucy was watering her roses. " It is a 
 matter of indifference to me," she said, " what 
 the people of New York think of Mr. Wal 
 deaux." 
 
 Clara looked at her quickly. " I do not 
 quite catch your meaning ? " she said. 
 
 But Lucy filled her can, and forgot to 
 answer. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 CLARA had brought Miss Dunbar back and 
 established her in her own house near Weir, 
 under the care of a deaf widowed aunt. 
 Dunbar Place was a stately colonial house, 
 set in a large demesne, and all Kent County 
 waited breathless to know what revelations the 
 heiress would make to it, in the way of equi 
 pages, marqueterie furniture, or Paris gowns. 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux found Lucy one day, a month 
 after her arrival, seated at her sewing on the 
 broad, rose-covered piazza, looking as if she 
 never had left it. 
 
 " Have you come to stay now, my dear," 
 she said, " or will Prince Wolfburgh " 
 
 " Oh, that is an old story," interrupted Clara. 
 " Lucy handed the little prince over to Jean 
 Hassard, who married him after he had a long 
 fi^ht with her father about her dot. Ke won 
 
 o 
 
 the dot, but Count Odo is now the head of 
 the house. Jean, I hear, is in Munich fighting 
 her way up among the Herrschaft." 
 
i8 3 
 
 "Jean has good fighting qualities," Lucy 
 said. " She will win." 
 
 " I had a letter from her to-day," said Miss 
 Vance. " Here it is. She says, I mean to re 
 build the Schloss, and I have put a stop to the 
 soap-boiling business. I will have no fumes 
 of scorching fat in our ancestral halls. Four 
 of the princesses live with us here in the flat. 
 Gussy Carson from Pond City is staying with 
 me now. We have an American tea every 
 Wednesday. Gus receives with me. " 
 
 " Poor princesses ! " said Lucy. 
 
 Miss Vance folded the letter with a com 
 placent nod. " I am glad that Jean is settled 
 so satisfactorily," she said. " As for Lucy " 
 
 No one answered. Lucy threaded her 
 needle. 
 
 " I start next week to Chicago, did you 
 know, Frances? The Bixbys two orphan 
 heiresses wish me to take them to Australia, 
 coming back by India. And I suppose," she 
 said, rising impatiently, " if I were to stay away 
 forty years I should find Lucy when I came 
 back, with white hair maybe, but sitting calmly 
 sewing, not caring whether there was a man in 
 the world or not ! " 
 
1 84 
 
 Lucy laughed, but did not even blush. 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux presently said good-by, 
 and Clara went home with her to spend the 
 night. Lucy was left alone upon the piazza. 
 It was there that George Waldeaux saw her 
 again. 
 
 This had been the hardest day of his life. 
 He rose that morning telling himself with an 
 oath that he would earn the money to buy his 
 own food or never eat again. His mother had 
 sent him a cheque by post. He tore it up and 
 went out of his cheap lodging-house without 
 breakfast. There was a queer change in him 
 a sudden lofty independence a sudden loath 
 ing of himself. He knew now that it was not 
 in him to do good work in the world, but at 
 least he would pay his own way. He had been 
 a mass of vanity and now he was so mean in 
 his own eyes that he shrank from the passers- 
 by. Perhaps the long strain had damaged the 
 gray matter of the brain, or some nervous 
 centre I do not know what change a physi 
 cian would have found in him, but the man 
 was changed. 
 
 A clerk was needed in a provision shop on 
 
Green Street George placed himself in the 
 line of dirty, squalid applicants. The day was 
 hot, the air of the shop was foul with the 
 smells of rotting meat and vegetables. He 
 felt himself stagger against a stall. He seemed 
 to be asleep, but he heard the butchers laugh 
 ing. They called him a drunken tramp, and 
 then he was hurled out on the muddy pave 
 ment. 
 
 " Too much whiskey for this time o day ! " 
 a policeman said, hauling him to his feet. 
 " Move along, young man ! " 
 
 Whiskey? That was what he wanted. He 
 turned into a shop and bought a dram with his 
 last pennies. It made him comfortable for a 
 few hours, then he began to cry and swear. 
 George Waldeaux had never been drunk in his 
 life. The ascetic, stainless priest in him stood 
 off and looked at this dog of the gutter with 
 his obscene talk, and then came defeat of soul 
 and body. 
 
 "I give up!" he said quietly. "I ll never 
 try again." 
 
 He wandered unconsciously to the ferry and, 
 having his yearly book of tickets in his pocket, 
 took the train for home from force of habit. 
 
186 
 
 He left the cars at a station several miles from 
 Weir, and wandered across the country. Just 
 at sundown, covered with mud and weak from 
 hunger and drunkenness, he crossed the lawn 
 before Lucy s house and, looking up, saw her. 
 
 He had stumbled into a world of peace and 
 purity ! A soft splendor filled the sky and the 
 bay and the green slopes, with their clumps 
 of mighty forest trees. The air was full of the 
 scents of flowers and the good-night song of 
 happy birds. And in the midst of it all, lady 
 of the great domain, under her climbing rose 
 vines, sat the young, fair woman, clad in some 
 fleecy white garments, her head bent, her blue 
 eyes fixed on the distance waiting. 
 
 George stopped, sobered by a sudden 
 wrench of his heart. There was the world to 
 which he belonged there! His keen eye 
 noted every delicate detail of her beauty and 
 of her dress. He was of her sort, her kind 
 he, kicked into the gutter from that foul shop 
 as a tramp ! 
 
 This is what I have lost ! his soul cried to 
 him. 
 
 He had not as yet recognized Lucy. But 
 now she saw him, and with a little inarticulate 
 
i8 7 
 
 cry like that of a bird, she flew down the steps. 
 " Ah ! It is you ! " she said. " I thought you 
 would come to welcome me some time ! " 
 
 Her voice was like a soft breath ; her airy 
 draperies blew against him. It was as if a 
 wonderful, beautiful dream were folding him 
 in and in. 
 
 He drew back. " I am not fit, Miss Dunbar. 
 I did not know you were here. Why look 
 at me!" 
 
 " Oh ! You are ill ! You have had an acci 
 dent ! " she cried. She had laid her little white 
 fingers on his hand and now, feeling it burn 
 and tremble at her touch, she caught it in both 
 of her own and drew him into the house. 
 
 " Mr. Waldeaux," she said to a servant who 
 appeared, "has had a fall. Bring him water 
 and towels. Take care of him, Stephen." 
 She spoke quietly, but her voice trembled with 
 fright. 
 
 The man led George to an inner room. 
 
 " Were you thrown, sir ? " he asked sym 
 pathetically. 
 
 George hesitated. "Yes, I was thrown," 
 he said grimly. 
 
 He made himself clean in angry haste, tak- 
 
188 
 
 ing the whisk from the man and brushing off 
 the dry mud with a vicious fury. 
 
 Lucy came to meet him, with a pale, anxious 
 smile. " You must not go without a cup of 
 hot coffee," she said, leading him to a lounge 
 in the hall. It was very sweet to be treated 
 like a sick man ! 
 
 "And God knows I am sick, body and 
 soul ! " he thought, sinking down. 
 
 Beside the lounge was a little table with one 
 cover. He noted with keen pleasure the deli 
 cate napery, the silver candlesticks, the bowl 
 of roses, with which the substantial meal was 
 set out. Lucy waited on him with the quick 
 intelligence of a trained nurse. She scarcely 
 spoke, yet her every motion, as she served him, 
 seemed a caress. When he had finished he 
 began to stammer out his thanks. 
 
 " No," she said, rising decisively. " You are 
 too weak to talk to me to-night, Mr. Waldeaux. 
 The coupt is at the door. John will drive 
 you home. You need sleep now." 
 
 As he sank down into the luxurious cushions 
 and drove away through the twilight, he saw 
 the little white figure in the door, and the 
 grave wistful face looking after him. 
 
iSg 
 
 " Did she suspect ! " he suddenly cried, start 
 ing up. 
 
 But George Waldeaux never knew how 
 much Lucy suspected that night. 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. Waldeaux s mare had jogged 
 on leisurely, dragging her mistress and Miss 
 Vance home through the shady country lanes. 
 
 " Phebe is old," apologized Frances. " She 
 really is a retired car horse." 
 
 " You used to take pride in your horses, 
 Frances ? " 
 
 "Yes." Mrs. Waldeaux added after a 
 pause. " My income is small. Of course 
 George soon will be coining money, but just 
 
 now The peach crop failed this year too. 
 
 And I save every dollar for Jack s education." 
 
 " But what of the jokes for the New York 
 paper ? They were profitable." 
 
 " Oh, I gave them up long ago." She 
 glanced around cautiously. " Never speak of 
 that, Clara. I would not have George know 
 for the world ; I never would hold up my head 
 if he knew that I was Quigg. " 
 
 Miss Vance gave a contemptuous sniff, but 
 Mrs. Waldeaux went on eagerly, " I have a 
 
igo 
 
 plan ! You know that swampy tract of ours 
 near Lewes ? When I have enough money 
 I ll drain it and lay out a summer resort 
 hotels cottages. I ll develop it as I sell the 
 lots. Oh, Jack shall have his millions yet to 
 do great work in the world ! " her eyes spark 
 ling. " Though perhaps he may choose to 
 strip himself of everything to give to the poor, 
 like Francis d Assisi ! That would be best of 
 all. It s not unlikely. He is the most gener 
 ous boy ! " 
 
 " Stuff ! " said Miss Vance. " St. Francis, 
 indeed ! I observe, by the way, that he crosses 
 himself after his meals. Are you making a 
 Romanist of the child ? And you speak 
 French to him, too ? " 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux s color rose. " His mother 
 was French and Catholic," she said. " I will 
 not have Lisa forgotten." 
 
 They went on in silence. Miss Vance was 
 lost in thought. Was George Waldeaux 
 equally eager to keep his wife s memory alive ? 
 Now that the conceit had been beaten out of 
 him, he would not make a bad husband. And 
 her child Lucy had always esteemed him 
 highly. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE next day was Sunday. George jumped 
 out of bed with the dawn. He whistled and 
 sang scraps of songs as he took his bath. The 
 sun shone. What a full, happy world it was, 
 anyhow ! And he had given up the game last 
 night ? Why, life was just beginning for him ! 
 He was nothing but a boy not yet thirty. 
 He would make a big success soon, and then 
 try to win to win He stopped, breath 
 less, looking into the distance, and his eyes 
 slowly grew wet with passion and longing. 
 
 He left the house and struck across the 
 country through the woodland and farms. 
 He did not know why he went he had to go. 
 When he reached the Dunbar woods, he stood 
 in the thicket for hours, watching the house. 
 She came out at last and sat down on the 
 steps to play with the dog. Last night in her 
 white, delicate beauty she had not seemed real 
 she was far off, like an angel coming down 
 into his depths of misery. 
 

 
 I 9 2 
 
 But to-day she sat on the steps in her pretty 
 blue gown, and laughed and rolled Tramp 
 over, and sung snatches of songs, and was 
 nothing but a foolish girl. For so many years 
 he had been thinking of work and money- 
 making and bosses. All of that mean drudgery 
 fell out of sight now. He was a man, young, 
 alone, on fire with hope and passion. His 
 share of life had been mean and pinched ; yon 
 der was youth and gladness and tranquillity. 
 The world was empty, save for themselves. 
 He was here, and there was the one woman in 
 it the one woman. 
 
 He looked at his tanned, rough fingers. Last 
 night she had folded them in her two soft 
 little hands, and drawn him on on into home ! 
 
 He would go up to her now and tell her 
 
 George pushed aside the bushes, but at that 
 moment Lucy rose and went into the house. 
 After a moment he crossed the lawn and sat 
 down on the piazza, calling the dog to him. 
 She would come back soon. Tramp s head 
 rested on his knee as he stroked it. It was 
 here her hand had touched it and here 
 
 The scent of roses was heavy in the sun 
 shine, the bees hummed ; he sat there in a 
 
I 9 3 
 
 hazy dream, waiting for the door to open and 
 the joy of his life to begin. 
 
 He was dragged roughly enough out of his 
 dream. 
 
 Miss Dunbar s landau drove to the door to 
 take her to church. George looked up, care 
 lessly noting how quiet and perfectly appointed 
 it was, from the brown liveries of the negro 
 coachman and footman to the trappings on the 
 black ponies. There were no horses of such 
 high breed in Delaware. He stood up sud 
 denly, his jaws pale as if he had been struck. 
 What money there was in it ! He had for 
 gotten. She was a great heiress. 
 
 She came out at the moment. He scanned 
 her fiercely, the plain, costly gown, the ruby 
 blazing on her ungloved hand. Then he 
 glanced down at his own shabby Sunday suit. 
 She was the richest woman in Delaware, and 
 he had not a dollar in his pocket, and no way 
 to earn one. 
 
 He went up to her, courteously took her 
 hand when she held it out, blushing and dim 
 pling, bowed to her aunt, saying that he had 
 merely walked over to put her into her car 
 riage, and, having shut the door, looked after 
 13 
 
IQ4 
 
 them, hat in hand, smiling when she glanced 
 shyly back at him. 
 
 Then he laughed loudly. If he had the 
 salary that she paid her negro driver he would 
 be lucky ! And he had meant to marry her. 
 He laughed again and took his way homeward. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 His mother was waiting to give George his 
 breakfast. Whether he chose to lie in bed 
 until noon or to walk twenty miles at dawn, 
 she smiled a joyful approval. But neither the 
 crisp toast, nor the fried chicken, nor any of 
 her funny stories, would penetrate the black 
 ness of his gloom. 
 
 " Oh, by the way ! " she said ; " here is a 
 letter that came by last night s mail. I forgot 
 to give it to you." 
 
 He glanced at the envelope. " Great 
 Heavens ! It is life and death to me, and you 
 forget it to tell Jack s pert sayings ! " He 
 read the letter and threw it down. 
 
 " What is it, George ? " she asked humbly. 
 
 " Burnett & Hoyle offer me a place in their 
 house." 
 
 " Mr. Hoyle is an old friend of mine. I 
 wrote to him. What is the salary, George ? " 
 
 " Forty dollars a week. I could earn more 
 as a coachman for some rich heiress." 
 
" But George dear It would be a be 
 ginning. They are brokers, and there are so 
 many short cuts to fortune in that business ! 
 Do try it, my son." 
 
 " Of course I ll try it. Do you think I m a 
 fool? It will keep me from starving. But I 
 want something else in life than to be kept 
 from starving, mother." 
 
 Fie stretched out his arms with a groan, and 
 walked to the window. She followed him with 
 wretched, comprehending eyes. Why did not 
 Lucy give him her fortune ? Any woman 
 would be honored who could give George her 
 fortune. 
 
 " I always have heard that brokers know the 
 short cuts to wealth," she said calmly. " You 
 go on the Street some day, and come back a 
 millionaire." 
 
 " That is a woman s idea of business. In 
 stead, I will sit on a high stool and drudge all 
 day, and on Saturday get my wages, and after 
 three or four years I ll make a fight for ten 
 dollars more a week, and thank God if I get it. 
 * A short cut to fortune ! " 
 
 Mrs. Waldeaux carefully averted her eyes 
 from him. "You may marry," she said, " and 
 
I 9 7 
 
 it may happen that your wife also will have 
 some little income " 
 
 " Mother ! Look at me ! " he interrupted 
 her sternly. " I will never be dependent on 
 my wife, so help me God ! " 
 
 " No, George, no ! Of course not. Don t 
 speak so loud. Only, I thought if she had a 
 small sum of her own, she would feel more 
 comfortable, that s all." 
 
 In spite of his ill temper George threw him 
 self into his work with zeal. After a couple 
 of months he came home for a day. He was 
 dressed with the quiet elegance which once 
 had been so important in his eyes. 
 
 His mother noted it shrewdly. " A man lias 
 more courage to face life, decently clothed," 
 she said to herself. 
 
 He did not come again until winter. Lucy 
 happened to be spending the day with Mrs. 
 Waldeaux. There were no liveried servants, 
 no priceless rings, no Worth gown in sight. 
 She was just the shy, foolish girl whom he had 
 once for an hour looked upon as his wife. 
 George talked about Wall Street to her, being 
 now wise as to stocks ; took her out sleighing, 
 
I 9 8 
 
 and when in the evening she took Jack in her 
 arms and sang him to sleep, sat listening with 
 his head buried in his hands. Mrs. Waldeaux 
 carried the boy up to bed, and Lucy and 
 George were left alone. They talked long and 
 earnestly. 
 
 " She consulted me about her affairs," he 
 said, after she was gone, his eyes shining. 
 
 " I am afraid she does not understand busi 
 ness ! " Mrs. Waldeaux replied anxiously. 
 
 " Oh, like a woman ! That is, not at all. 
 Her whole property is in the hands of The 
 Consolidated Good Faith Companies. I re 
 minded her of the old adage, Never put all of 
 your eggs into one basket. " 
 
 " But that is so sound a basket, George ! " 
 
 "Yes. It is thought so," with a shrug. 
 
 " Poor child ! She needs a guardian to 
 advise her." 
 
 Waldeaux s countenance grew black. " She 
 should employ an attorney. It certainly will 
 never be my duty to advise Miss Dunbar," he 
 retorted irritably. 
 
 George showed himself shrewd and able in 
 his work. Mr. Hoyle was a powerful backer. 
 
199 
 
 Before spring his salary was doubled. But 
 what was that? The gulf between him and 
 the great heiress gaped, impassable. 
 
 Lucy spent much time with her old friend, 
 and Frances at last broke the silence concern 
 ing him. 
 
 " The boy never before knew what love was. 
 And it is you that he loves, child." 
 
 " He has not told me so," said Lucy 
 coldly. 
 
 " No. And never will. It is your wealth 
 that makes him dumb. I wish it was gone," 
 said Frances earnestly. " Gone. You would 
 be so happy. What is money compared to 
 being " 
 
 " George s wife?" Lucy laughed. 
 
 " Yes. George s wife. I know what he is 
 worth," his mother said boldly. "You might 
 give it away ? " looking eagerly in the girl s 
 face. " In charity." 
 
 " I might do so," said Miss Dunbar tran 
 quilly. 
 
 One morning in April Mrs. Waldeaux saw 
 George coming up from the station. She ran 
 to meet him. 
 
200 
 
 He was pale and breathless with excite 
 ment. " What is it ? What has happened ? " 
 she cried. 
 
 "Hush h! Come in. Shut the door. No 
 one must hear. The Consolidated Companies 
 have failed. They have robbed their de 
 positors." 
 
 " Well, George ? What have we Oh, 
 
 Lucy ! " 
 
 " Yes, Lucy ! She is ruined ! She has 
 nothing. It was all there." He paced up 
 and down, hoarse with agitation and triumph. 
 " She mustn t know it, mother, until she is safe 
 in another home." 
 
 " Another home ? " 
 
 " Oh, surely you understand ! Here if she 
 will come. Poor little girl ! She has not a 
 dollar ! I am getting a big salary. I can work 
 for you all. My God ! I will have her at 
 
 last ! Unless Perhaps she won t come ! 
 
 Mother, do you think she will come ? " He 
 caught her arm, his jaws twitched, the tears 
 stood in his eyes, as when he used to come to 
 her with his boyish troubles. 
 
 " How can I tell ?" said Frances. " Go and 
 ask her." 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 IN July Miss Vance returned unexpectedly. 
 Her charges had tired of travel, and turned 
 their backs upon India. She dropped them 
 in Chicago, and came to Weir for rest. The 
 evening of her arrival she strolled with 
 Frances through the park, listening to the 
 story of George s sudden wooing, and the 
 quiet, hurried wedding. 
 
 " It had to be quiet and hurried," said Mrs. 
 Waldeaux, " in order to keep her ignorant of 
 her change of fortune. He took her to the 
 Virginia mountains, so that no newspapers 
 could reach her. They are coming to-morrow. 
 It won t trouble her to hear that her money 
 is gone when she is here with us all, at home. 
 As for me," she went on excitedly, " I am be 
 ginning to advertise the summer resort. I 
 must put my hand to the plough. I don t 
 mean that she shall miss any comfort or lux 
 ury as George s wife." 
 
 Miss Vance looked at her. " Frances, give 
 
202 
 
 up your planning and working. Let George 
 work for you and his wife," she said curtly. 
 " It is time for you to stop and rest." 
 
 " And why should I stop and rest, Clara ? " 
 said Frances, amazed. 
 
 " Surely you know, dear. You are not as 
 young as you once were. Your eyes are weak, 
 and your hearing is a little dulled, and " 
 
 Frances threw out her hand eagerly. " You 
 think I am growing old ! It is only my eyes 
 and ears that are wearing out. / am not deaf 
 nor blind," she said earnestly. " / am not old. 
 I find more fun and flavor in life now than I 
 did at sixteen. If I live to be seventy, or a 
 hundred, I shall be the same Frances Wal- 
 deaux still." 
 
 Clara gave an annoyed shrug. " But really, 
 / make the thought of death my constant 
 companion. And you are older than I. 
 
 " After the busy day 
 
 Comes the calm sleep of night, >: 
 
 she quoted, with a sententious sigh. 
 
 " Calm and sleep do not appear to me to be 
 the highest conditions of life. No ! I will not 
 be set aside, even when I am dead, like a 
 
203 
 
 burned-out candle ! " The indignant tears 
 stood in her eyes. " Why, even in that other 
 world I shall not be a barren stock, thank 
 God ! I have given a family to mankind. To 
 watch a long line of your descendants at work, 
 to see in them your own thoughts and your 
 own soul reaching out, live powers through all 
 eternity I often think of it. That will be 
 not calm nor sleep." 
 
 Miss Vance touched Mrs. Waldeaux s arm 
 affectionately. " What a queer idea, Frances. 
 Well, I never argue, you know. Drop in the 
 harness, if you choose. Let us go in now. 
 It is chilly." 
 
 The older woman looked after her, and 
 smiled good-humoredly. After a moment 
 she raised her hand, examining it attentively. 
 Her hand had been very beautiful in shape, 
 white and dimpled, and she had been vain 
 enough to wear fine rings. Now it was yellow 
 and wrinkled. The great emerald looked like 
 a bit of glass upon it. 
 
 "Yes, I see," she said, with a miserable 
 little laugh, and then stood looking out into 
 the far distance. " But / am not growing old." 
 She spoke aloud, as if to one who stood apart 
 
204 
 
 with her and could understand. " Even out 
 in that other world I shall not be only a 
 mother. I shall be me. Me ! " touching her 
 breast. "After a million of years it will 
 still be me." 
 
 There stirred within the lean body and 
 rheumatic limbs depths of unused power, of 
 thought, of love and passion, and, deeper than 
 all, awful possibilities of change. 
 
 " I have it in me still to be worse than a 
 murderer," she thought, with whitening face. 
 
 She stood a long time, alone. A strange 
 content and light came slowly into her face. 
 " Come what will, I shall never be left to 
 myself again," she said at last, speaking to a 
 Friend whom she had found long ago. 
 
 Then she went in search of the boy. 
 " Come, Jack," she said cheerfully, " there 
 are busy days before us." 
 
 George and Lucy that evening reached 
 Dover, prettiest of American towns. They 
 strolled down the shaded street out into a 
 quiet country lane. Lucy sat down upon a 
 fallen tree, and George threw himself upon the 
 grass beside her. 
 
205 
 
 " To-morrow we shall be at home," she said, 
 pushing his hair back. " Do you know that 
 your profile is absolutely Greek ?" Her eyes 
 half closed critically. "Yes, we shall be at 
 home about eleven o clock. I wrote to 
 Stephen to order all the dishes that you 
 like for luncheon. Your mother and Jack 
 are coming. It will be such a gay, happy 
 day ! " 
 
 He took her hand. He would tell her 
 now. It would not distress her. The money 
 weighed for nothing in her life. He was her 
 world ; he knew that. 
 
 " Lucy ! " he said. 
 
 She turned, startled at his grave tone. The 
 color rose in her delicate little face, and there 
 was a keen flash of intelligence in her blue 
 eyes. It vanished, and they were only blue 
 and innocent. 
 
 " Lucy, would you be willing to come to my 
 house? To take it for home? To be a poor 
 man s wife, there ? God knows I ll try to 
 make you happy in it." 
 
 " No," she said gently. " That is your 
 mother s home. She has made it. It is not 
 fair to bring young queen bees into the old 
 
206 
 
 queen s hive. We will live at your house, 
 Dunbar Place, George." 
 
 "It is not mine nor yours!" George broke 
 out. " Oh, my darling, I have hidden some 
 thing from you. It is all gone. Your prop 
 erty, income, every thing! The Consolidated 
 Companies failed. Their depositors are 
 ruined." 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Lucy, brushing a fallen 
 leaf from her gown. " But they had no con 
 trol over my affairs. I withdrew them from 
 their management in February." 
 
 George started up. " Then you you are a 
 great heiress still ? " 
 
 " No." She rose, holding out her hands, 
 laughing. " My husband, I believe, is a rich 
 man, and I shall have what he gives me." 
 
 But he did not hear her. He walked 
 away down the road, shaken by a dumb fury. 
 He had been tricked ! Who had tricked 
 him? 
 
 Then he heard a miserable sob and turned. 
 Great God ! Was any thing on earth so dear 
 as that little woman standing there ? She was 
 crying ! Had he struck her ? He was a brute. 
 What had he done ? 
 
207 
 
 He ran to her, and taking her outstretched 
 hands, kissed them passionately. 
 
 " They are mine mine ! " he whispered, and 
 knew nothing beyond. 
 
 They walked together like two happy chil 
 dren down the shady lane toward the golden 
 sunset. The money was forgotten. 
 
 THE END. 
 


 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
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 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
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 SE P! 2 1953 LU 
 
 FEB 2 4= 1966 3 8 
 1939 
 APR 5196770 
 
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 JUN 1 1985 
 
 JUN 22 19 
 
 
 
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 CIRCUUT/ON OEPT, 
 
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THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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