meant you to know--I had ten thousand francs of yours that were
given to me for you exclusively. Well, D'Argenton put them into his
Review; I know that he meant to pay you large interest, but the ten
thousand francs have been swallowed up with all the others, and when I
asked him if he did not intend to account to you for them, do you know
what he did? He drew up a long bill of all that he has paid for you.
Your board at Etiolles, that amounts to fifteen thousand francs. But he
does not ask you to pay the difference; is not that very generous?" and
Charlotte laughed sarcastically. "I tell you I have borne everything,"
she continued,--"the rages he has fallen into on your account, and
the mean way in which he has talked with his friends of the affair at
Indret; as if your innocence had never been fully established!

"And then to leave me in ignorance of his where-abouts, to spend his
time with some countess in the Faubourg St. Germaine,--for those women
are all crazy about him,--and then to receive my reproaches with such
disdain, and finally to strike me! Me, Ida de Barancy! This was too
much. I dressed, and put on my hat, and then I went to him. I said,
'Look at me, M. d'Argenton; look at me well; it is the last time that
you will see me; I am going to my child.' And then I came away."

Jack had listened in silence to these revelations, growing paler and
paler, and so filled with shame for the woman who narrated them that he
could not look at her. When she had finished, he took her hand gently,
and with much sweetness, but also with much solemnity, he said,--

"I thank you for having come to me, dear mother. Only one thing was
lacking to complete my happiness, and that was your presence. Now take
care! I shall never allow you to leave me."

"Leave you! No, Jack; we will always live together--we two. You know
I told you that the day would come when I should need you. It has come
now."

Under her son's caresses she became tranquillized. There came an
occasional sob, like a child who has wept for a long time.

"You see," she said, "how happy we may be. I owe you much care and
tenderness. I feel now that I can breathe freely. Your room is bare and
small, but it seems to me like Paradise itself."

This brief summary of the apartment regarded by Belisaire as so
magnificent, disturbed Jack somewhat as to the future; but he had no
time now for discussions; he had but half an hour before he must leave,
and he must decid