is lady's house a paid
dependant only in name and treated as an honoured guest. A time of
trouble and distress having come to them, what could I do but help
such friends to the best of my power, seeking to avoid any hurt to
their pride?

I explained the figures to Madame de Clericy, whose bright quick eyes
seemed to watch my face rather than the paper as my pen travelled down
it. I began to feel conscious, as I often did in her presence, that I
was but a clumsy oaf; and, furthermore, suspected that Lucille was
watching me over the book she pretended to read.

"And this," said the Vicomtesse, when I had finished, "is how we stand
towards each other?"--

"Yes, Madame."

And I dared not raise my eyes from the books before me. The Vicomtesse
rose and moved towards the fireplace, where the logs burned brightly,
for the spring evenings are cold on the East Coast, and we are glad
enough to burn fires. She held my dishonest account in her hand and
quietly dropped it into the fire.

"You are right, mon ami," she said, with a smile. "What we owe you
cannot be set down on paper--but it was kind of you to try."

Lucille had risen to her feet. Her glance flashed from one to the
other.

"Mother," she said coldly, "what have you done? How can we now pay Mr.
Howard?"

Madame made no reply, reserving her defence--as the lawyers have
it--until a fitter occasion. This presented itself later in the
evening when mother and daughter were alone. Indeed, the Vicomtesse
went to Lucille's room for the purpose.

"Lucille," she said, "I wish you would trust Mr. Howard as entirely as
I do."

"But no one trusts him," answered Lucille, and her slipper tapped the
floor. "Alphonse does not believe that he is looking for the money at
all. It was for his own ends that he dismissed Mr. Devar, who was so
hurt that he has never appeared since. And you do not know how he
treated Isabella."

"How did he treat Isabella?" asked Madame quietly, and seemed to
attach some importance to the question.

"He--well, he ought to have married her."

"Why?" asked Madame.

"Oh--it is a long story, and Isabella has only told me parts of it.
She dislikes him, and with good cause."

Madame stood with one arm resting on the mantelpiece, the firelight
glowing on her black dress. Her clever speculative eyes were fixed on
the smouldering logs of driftwood. Lucille was moving about the room,
exhibiting by her manner that impatience which the mention of my nam