gage himself from her embrace.

"You do not blame me for your rearing? Knowing all, as you do,
Andre-Louis, you cannot altogether blame. You must be merciful to me.
You must forgive me. You must! I had no choice."

"When we know all of whatever it may be, we can never do anything but
forgive, madame. That is the profoundest religious truth that was ever
written. It contains, in fact, a whole religion--the noblest religion
any man could have to guide him. I say this for your comfort, madame my
mother."

She sprang away from him with a startled cry. Beyond him in the shadows
by the door a pale figure shimmered ghostly. It advanced into the light,
and resolved itself into Aline. She had come in answer to that forgotten
summons madame had sent her by Jacques. Entering unperceived she had
seen Andre-Louis in the embrace of the woman whom he addressed as
"mother." She had recognized him instantly by his voice, and she could
not have said what bewildered her more: his presence there or the thing
she overheard.

"You heard, Aline?" madame exclaimed.

"I could not help it, madame. You sent for me. I am sorry if..." She
broke off, and looked at Andre-Louis long and curiously. She was pale,
but quite composed. She held out her hand to him. "And so you have come
at last, Andre," said she. "You might have come before."

"I come when I am wanted," was his answer. "Which is the only time in
which one can be sure of being received." He said it without bitterness,
and having said it stooped to kiss her hand.

"You can forgive me what is past, I hope, since I failed of my purpose,"
he said gently, half-pleading. "I could not have come to you pretending
that the failure was intentional--a compromise between the necessities of
the case and your own wishes. For it was not that. And yet, you do not
seem to have profited by my failure. You are still a maid."

She turned her shoulder to him.

"There are things," she said, "that you will never understand."

"Life, for one," he acknowledged. "I confess that I am finding it
bewildering. The very explanations calculated to simplify it seem but to
complicate it further." And he looked at Mme. de Plougastel.

"You mean something, I suppose," said mademoiselle.

"Aline!" It was the Countess who spoke. She knew the danger of
half-discoveries. "I can trust you, child, I know, and Andre-Louis, I am
sure, will offer no objection." She had taken up the letter to show it
to Aline. Yet first h