little Eton jacket, and I told her she
would certainly have every cent we owed her, and she seemed very
happy. She is going to a party to-night and will wear that dress. She
thinks she will get her lover back. Those Hungarian men must be queer
lovers. Marie said he would not marry her, anyway, until she had some
money for her dowry, but she thinks she may be able to keep him until
then with my red silk dress, and I told her she should certainly have
it all in time." Charlotte's voice, in making the last statement, was
full of pride and confidence without a trace of interrogation.

"She shall if I live, dear," said Carroll. All at once there came
over him, stimulated with food for heart and body, such a rush of the
natural instinct for life as to completely possess him. It seemed to
him that as a short time before he had hungered for death, he now
hungered for life. Even the desire to live and pay that miserable
little Hungarian servant-maid was a tremendous thing. The desire to
live for the smallest virtues, ambitions, and pleasures of life was
compelling force.

"I have something beautiful for breakfast to-morrow morning, papa,"
said Charlotte, "and I know how to make coffee." And he felt that it
was worth while living for to-morrow morning's breakfast alone. No
doubt this state of mind, as abnormal in its way as the other had
been, was largely due to physical causes, to the unprosaic quantity
of food in a stomach which had been cheated of its needs for a number
of days. The blood rushed through his veins with the added force of
reaction, supplying his brain. He was not happier--that could
scarcely be said--but he was swinging in the opposite direction.
Whereas he had wanted to die, because of his misery and failures, he
now wanted to live, to repair them, and the thought was dawning upon
him, to take revenge because of them. In this mood the consideration
of the bottle of chloroform in his pocket became more and more
humiliating and condemning. The sight of the girl's innocent,
triumphant, loving little face opposite overwhelmed him with a
stinging consciousness of it all. He felt at one minute a terrible
fear lest those clear young eyes of hers could penetrate his
miserable secret, lest she should say, suddenly: "Papa, what did you
go to Port Willis for? What have you in your pocket?"

Charlotte went to bed early, after she had cleared away the table and
washed the dishes, unwonted tasks for her, but which she pe