She
who had at once made friends and tools of Lady Henry's servants,
disdained, so it appeared, to be served beyond what was absolutely
necessary in her own house. A charwoman, indeed, came in the morning for
the roughest work, but by ten o'clock she was gone, and Julie, Madame
Bornier, and the child remained in undisputed possession. Little,
flat-nosed, silent Madame Bornier bought and brought in all they ate.
She denounced the ways, the viands, the brigand's prices of English
_fournisseurs_, but it seemed to Julie, all the same, that she handled
them with a Napoleonic success. She bought as the French poor buy, so
far as the West End would let her, and Julie had soon perceived that
their expenditure, even in this heart of Mayfair, would be incredibly
small. Whereby she felt herself more and more mistress of her fate. By
her own unaided hands would she provide for herself and her household.
Each year there should be a little margin, and she would owe no man
anything. After six months, if she could not afford to pay the Duke a
fair rent for his house--always supposing he allowed her to remain in
it--she would go elsewhere.

As she reached the hall, clad in an old serge dress, which was a
survival from Bruges days, Therese ran up to her with the letters.

Julie looked through them, turned and went back to her room. She had
expected the letter which lay on the top, and she must brace herself
to read it.

It began abruptly:

"You will hardly wonder that I should write at once to ask if
you have no explanation to give me of your manner of this
afternoon. Again and again I go over what happened, but no
light comes. It was as though you had wiped out all the six
months of our friendship; as though I had become for you once
more the merest acquaintance. It is impossible that I can
have been mistaken. You meant to make me--and
others?--clearly understand--what? That I no longer deserved
your kindness--that you had broken altogether with the man on
whom you had so foolishly bestowed it?

"My friend, what have I done? How have I sinned? Did that
sour lady, who asked me questions she had small business to
ask, tell you tales that have set your heart against me? But
what have incidents and events that happened, or may have
happened, in India, got to do with our friendship, which grew
up for definite reasons and has come to mean so much--has it