eanne trembling.

"You will tell me--the truth?" she begged, like a child. "You will tell
me what you think--of the picture?"

"Yes."

She went in ahead of him and turned the frame so that the face in the
picture smiled down upon them in all of its luring loveliness. There
was something pathetic in the girl's attitude now. She stood under the
picture, facing Philip, and there was a tense eagerness in her eyes, a
light that was almost supplication, a crying out of her soul to him in
a breathless moment that seemed hovering between pain and joy. It was
Jeanne, an older Jeanne, that looked from out of the picture, smiling,
inviting admiration, bewildering hi her beauty; it was Jeanne, the
child, waiting for him in flesh and blood to speak, her eyes big and
dark, her breath coming quickly, her hands buried in the deep lace on
her bosom. A low word came to Philip's lips, and then he laughed
softly. It was a laugh, almost under his breath, which sweeps up now
and then from a soul in a joy--an emotion--which is unutterable in
words. But to Jeanne it was different. Her dark eyes grew hurt and
wounded, two great tears ran down her paling cheeks, and suddenly she
buried her face in her hands and with a sobbing cry turned from him,
with her head bowed under the smiling face above.

"And you--you hate it, too!" she sobbed. "They all hate
it--Pierre--father--all--all hate it. It must--it must be bad. They
hate her--every one--but me. And--I love her so!"

Her slender form shook with sobs. For a moment Philip stood like one
struck dumb. Then he sprang to her and caught her close in his arms.

"Jeanne--Jeanne--listen," he cried. "To-night I looked at that picture
before I went to see your father, and I loved it because it is like
you. Jeanne, my darling, I love you--I love you--"

She was panting against his breast. He covered her face with kisses.
Her sweet lips were not turned from him, and there filled her eyes a
sudden light that made him almost sob in his happiness.

"I love you, I love you," he repeated, again and again, and he could
find no other words than those.

For an instant her arms clung about his shoulders, and then, suddenly,
they strained against him, and she tore herself free, and, with a cry
so pathetic that it seemed as though her heart had broken in that
moment, she fled from him, and out of the room.

XVIII

Philip stood where Jeanne had left him, his arms half reaching out to
the vacant doo