geance dictated by jealousy
and despair?" murmured Pauline. "Once there was attraction in this face
for you, Ernest; have some compassion, some sympathy----"

Well as he knew the worth of madame's tears, Ernest, chivalric and
generous at heart, was touched.

"Forgive me," he said, gently, "and let us part. You know now, Pauline,
that she has my deepest, my latest love. It were disloyalty to both did
we meet again save in society."

"Farewell, then," murmured Pauline. "Think gently of me, Ernest, for I
_have_ loved you more than you will ever know now."

She rose, and, as he bent towards her, kissed his forehead. Then,
floating from the room, passed the Reverend Eusebius, standing in the
doorway, looking in on this parting scene. The widow looked at herself
in her mirror that night with a smile of satisfaction.

"C'est bien en train," she said, half aloud. "Le fou! de penser qu'il
puisse me braver. Je ne l'aime plus, c'est vrai, mais je ne veux pas
qu'elle reussisse."

Nina went to bed very happy. Ernest had sat next her at the dejeuner;
and afterwards at a ball had waltzed often with her and with nobody
else; and his eyes had talked love in the waltzes though his tongue
never had.

Ernest went to his chambers, smoked hard, half mad with the battle
within him, and took three grains of opium, which gave him forgetfulness
and sleep. He woke, tired and depressed, to hear the gay hum of life in
the street below, and to remember he had promised Nina to meet them at
Versailles.

It was Sunday morning. In England, of course, Gordon would have gone up
to the sanctuary, listened to Mr. Bellew, frowned severely on the cheap
trains, and, after his claret, read edifying sermons to his household;
but in Paris there would be nobody to admire the piety, and the "grandes
eaux" only play once a week, you know--on Sundays. So his Sabbath
severity was relaxed, and down to Versailles he journied. There must be
something peculiar in continental air, for it certainly stretches our
countrymen's morality and religion uncommonly: it is only up at
Jerusalem that our pharisees worship. Eusebius dare not go--he'd be sure
to meet a brother-clerical, who might have reported the dereliction at
home--so that Vaughan, despite Gordon's cold looks, kept by Nina's side
though he wasn't alone with her, and when they came back in the _wagon_
the banker slept and the duenna dozed, and he talked softly and low to
her--not quite love, but something ve