ing the victim.

And all this suffering was the consequence of a fault, an interview
granted to Gaston. Ever since that fatal day she had been vainly
struggling against the implacable logic of events. Her life had been
spent in trying to overcome the past, and now it had risen to crush her.

The hardest thing of all to do, the act that most wrung her heart, was
showing to her husband the forged letter from St. Remy, and saying that
she expected to see her rich young nephew in a day or two. 'Tis hard to
deceive those who trust and love us.

But words cannot paint the torture she endured on the evening that she
introduced Raoul to her family, and saw the honest banker cordially
shake hands with this nephew of whom he had never heard before, and
affectionately say to him:

"I am not surprised that a rich young fellow like yourself should prefer
Paris to St. Remy, and nothing will give me more pleasure than your
visit; for I seldom have an opportunity of welcoming a relative of my
dear wife, for whose sake I take an interest in everyone coming from St.
Remy."

Raoul exerted his utmost to deserve this warm reception.

If his early education had been neglected, and he lacked those delicate
refinements of manner and conversation which home influence imparts, his
superior tact concealed these defects.

He possessed the happy faculty of reading characters, and adapting his
conversation to the minds of his listeners.

Before a week had gone by, he was a favorite with M. Fauvel, intimate
with Abel and Lucien, and inseparable from Prosper Bertomy, the cashier,
who spent all his evenings with the banker's family.

Charmed at the favorable impression made by Raoul, Mme. Fauvel recovered
comparative ease of mind, and at times almost congratulated herself
upon having obeyed the marquis, as she saw all around her contented and
happy. Once more she began to hope that peace had not deserted her, that
God had forgiven her.

Alas! she rejoiced too soon.

Raoul's intimacy with his cousins threw him among a set of rich young
men, whose extravagance he not only imitated, but surpassed. He daily
grew more dissipated and reckless. Gambling, racing, expensive suppers,
made money slip through his fingers like grains of sand.

This proud young man, whose sensitive delicacy not long since made
him refuse to accept aught save affection from his mother, now never
approached her without demanding large sums of money.

At first she gave