lect,
callousness on her part. Mutely, within herself, she craved his
forgiveness for the appearance of that phantom which should never have
come forth from out that chaotic hell which had engendered it.

"Armand!" she cried.

And the loving arms that had guided his baby footsteps long ago, the
tender hands that had wiped his boyish tears, were stretched out with
unalterable love toward him.

"I have a message for you, dear," she said gently--"a letter from him.
Mademoiselle Jeanne allowed me to wait here for you until you came."

Silently, like a little shy mouse, Jeanne had slipped out of the room.
Her pure love for Armand had ennobled every one of her thoughts, and her
innate kindliness and refinement had already suggested that brother
and sister would wish to be alone. At the door she had turned and met
Armand's look. That look had satisfied her; she felt that in it she
had read the expression of his love, and to it she had responded with a
glance that spoke of hope for a future meeting.

As soon as the door had closed on Jeanne Lange, Armand, with an impulse
that refused to be checked, threw himself into his sister's arms. The
present, with all its sorrows, its remorse and its shame, had sunk away;
only the past remained--the unforgettable past, when Marguerite
was "little mother"--the soother, the comforter, the healer, the
ever-willing receptacle wherein he had been wont to pour the burden of
his childish griefs, of his boyish escapades.

Conscious that she could not know everything--not yet, at any rate--he
gave himself over to the rapture of this pure embrace, the last
time, mayhap, that those fond arms would close round him in unmixed
tenderness, the last time that those fond lips would murmur words of
affection and of comfort.

To-morrow those same lips would, perhaps, curse the traitor, and the
small hand be raised in wrath, pointing an avenging finger on the Judas.

"Little mother," he whispered, babbling like a child, "it is good to see
you again."

"And I have brought you a message from Percy," she said, "a letter which
he begged me to give you as soon as maybe."

"You have seen him?" he asked.

She nodded silently, unable to speak. Not now, not when her nerves were
strung to breaking pitch, would she trust herself to speak of that awful
yesterday. She groped in the folds of her gown and took the packet which
Percy had given her for Armand. It felt quite bulky in her hand.

"There is quite