ave been badly treated.
There is no one who would not admit that. I have been deceived--a man
less kind than I might say robbed. No matter. I forget it all. I forget
my disappointment, I forget that this young lady whom you offer me for
a wife has a dot so pitifully small that it counts for nothing. I take
her. I accept her. Jeanne," he added, moving towards her, "you hear? It
is because I love you so very, very much."

Jeanne shrank back in her chair.

"You mean," she cried, "that you are willing to take me now that you
know everything, now that you know I have so little money? You mean
that you want to marry me still?"

The Count assented graciously. Never in the course of his whole life,
had he admired himself so much.

"I forget everything," he declared, with a little wave of the hand,
"except that I love you, and that you are the one woman in the world
whom I wish to make the Comtesse de Brensault. Mademoiselle permits me?"

He stooped and raised her cold hand to his lips. Jeanne looked at him
with the fascinated despair of some stricken animal. The Princess rose
to her feet. It was wonderful, this--a triumph beyond all thought.

"Jeanne, my child," she said, "you are the most fortunate girl I know,
to have inspired a devotion so great. Count," she added, "you are
wonderful. You deserve all the happiness which I am sure will come to
you."

The Count looked as though he were perfectly convinced of it. All the
same he whispered in her ear a moment later--

"You must pay me back that three thousand pounds!"

CHAPTER XIX

For the Princess it was a day full of excitements. The Count had only
just reluctantly withdrawn, and Jeanne had gone to her room under the
plea of fatigue, when Forrest was shown in. She started at the look in
his drawn face.

"Nigel," she exclaimed hastily, "is everything all right?"

He threw himself into a chair.

"Everything," he answered, "is all wrong. Everything is over."

The Princess saw then that he had aged during the last few days, that
this man whose care of himself had kept him comparatively youthful
looking, notwithstanding the daily routine of an unwholesome life, was
showing signs at last of breaking down. There were lines about his
eyes, little baggy places underneath. He dragged his feet across the
carpet as though he were tired. The Princess pushed up an easy-chair
and went herself to the sideboard.

"Give me a little brandy," he said, "or rather a good