e in a
most delightful _milieu_, and Lady Beltham, whom, I know, you would
please, would almost certainly interest herself in your future. She
knows what unhappiness is as well as you do, my dear," he added, bending
fondly over the girl, "and she would understand you."

"Dear M. Rambert!" murmured Therese, much moved: "do that; speak to Lady
Beltham about me; I should be so glad!"

Therese did not finish all she would have said. A loud ring at the front
door bell broke in upon her words, and Etienne Rambert rose and walked
across the room.

"That must be the good Baronne de Vibray come for you," he said.

XIV. MADEMOISELLE JEANNE

After she had so roughly disposed of the enterprising Henri Verbier,
whose most unseemly advances had so greatly scandalised her, Mlle.
Jeanne took to her heels, directly she was out of sight of the Royal
Palace Hotel, and ran like one possessed. She stood for a moment in the
brilliantly lighted, traffic-crowded Avenue Wagram, shaking with
excitement and with palpitating heart, and then mechanically hailed a
passing cab and told the driver to take her towards the Bois. There she
gave another heedless order to go to the boulevard Saint-Denis, but as
the cab approached the place de l'Etoile she realised that she was once
more near the Royal Palace Hotel, and stopping the driver by the tram
lines she dismissed him and got into a tram that was going to the
station of Auteuil. It was just half-past eleven when she reached the
station.

"When is the next train for Saint-Lazaire?" she asked.

She learned that one was starting almost at once, and hurriedly taking a
second-class ticket she jumped into a ladies' carriage and went as far
as Courcelles. There she alighted, went out of the station, looked
around her for a minute or two to get her bearings, and then walked
slowly towards the rue Eugene-Flachat. She hesitated a second, and then
walked firmly towards a particular house, and rang the bell.

* * * * *

"A lady to see you, sir," the footman said to M. Rambert.

"Bring her in here at once," said M. Rambert, supposing that the man had
kept the Baronne de Vibray waiting in the anteroom.

The drawing-room door was opened a little way, and someone came in and
stepped quickly into the shadow by the door. Therese, who had risen to
hurry towards the visitor, stopped short when she perceived that it was
a stranger and not her guardian. Noticing her acti