our having any association with Mademoiselle de Gramont."

Madeleine advanced with calm dignity towards the countess, and said
quietly,--

"Madame--aunt"--

The countess interrupted her imperiously.

"Aunt! Do you _dare_ to address _me_ by that title? _You_--a
_dressmaker!_ When you forgot your noble birth, and lowered yourself to
the working-classes, making yourself one with them,--when you demeaned
yourself to gain your bread by your needle, bread which should have
choked a de Gramont to eat,--you should also have forgotten your
relationship to me, never to remember it again!"

"If I did not forget it, madame," answered Madeleine, with calm
self-respect, "I was at least careful that my condition should not
become known to you. I strove to act as though I had been dead to you,
that my existence might not cause you mortification. I could not guard
against the accident which has thrown us together once more, but for the
last time, as far as my will is concerned."

"This meeting was not Mademoiselle Madeleine's fault," cried M. de Bois,
coming to the rescue. "It was my folly,--another blunder of mine! I was
dolt enough to think that you had only to see her for all to be well;
and, instead of warning Mademoiselle Madeleine that you were in
Washington, I kept from her a knowledge which would have prevented your
encountering each other. It was all my imprudence, my miscalculation! I
see my error since it has subjected her to insult; and yet what I did,"
continued he more passionately, and regarding Maurice, as he spoke, "was
for the sake of one who"--

Madeleine, seized with a sudden dread of the manner in which he might
conclude this sentence, broke in abruptly,--

"Were I not indebted to you, M. de Bois, for so many kindnesses, I might
reproach you now; but it was well for me to learn this lesson; it was
well for me to be certain that my aunt would discard me because I
preferred honest industry to cold charity."

"Discard you?" rejoined the countess, furiously. "Could you doubt that I
would discard you? Henceforth the tie of blood between us is dissolved;
you are no relative of mine! I forbid you to make known that we have
ever met. I forbid my family to hold any intercourse with you. I appeal
to my son to say if this is not the just retribution which your conduct
has brought upon you!"

The count answered with deliberation, as though he was pondering some
possibility in his wily mind; as if some idea had occur