d it go off?"

She murmured, almost fainting: "Oh! it was terrible, above all with
mamma."

He was uneasy and quivering. "Your mamma. What did she say? Tell me."

"Oh! it was awful. I went into her room and told her my little story
that I had carefully prepared. She grew pale, and then she cried:
'Never, never.' I cried, I grew angry. I vowed I would marry no one but
you. I thought that she was going to strike me. She went on just as if
she were mad; she declared that I should be sent back to the convent the
next day. I had never seen her like that--never. Then papa came in,
hearing her shouting all her nonsense. He was not so angry as she was,
but he declared that you were not a good enough match. As they had put
me in a rage, too, I shouted louder than they did. And papa told me to
leave the room, with a melodramatic air that did not suit him at all.
This is what decided me to run off with you. Here I am. Where are we
going to?"

He had passed his arm gently round her and was listening with all his
ears, his heart throbbing, and a ravenous hatred awakening within him
against these people. But he had got their daughter. They should just
see.

He answered: "It is too late to catch a train, so this cab will take us
to Sevres, where we shall pass the night. To-morrow we shall start for
La Roche-Guyon. It is a pretty village on the banks of the Seine,
between Nantes and Bonnieres."

She murmured: "But I have no clothes. I have nothing."

He smiled carelessly: "Bah! we will arrange all that there."

The cab rolled along the street. George took one of the young girl's
hands and began to kiss it slowly and with respect. He scarcely knew
what to say to her, being scarcely accustomed to platonic love-making.
But all at once he thought he noted that she was crying. He inquired,
with alarm: "What is the matter with you, darling?"

She replied in tearful tones: "Poor mamma, she will not be able to sleep
if she has found out my departure."

Her mother, indeed, was not asleep.

As soon as Susan had left the room, Madame Walter remained face to face
with her husband. She asked, bewildered and cast down: "Good heavens!
What is the meaning of this?"

Walter exclaimed furiously: "It means that that schemer has bewitched
her. It is he who made her refuse Cazolles. He thinks her dowry worth
trying for." He began to walk angrily up and down the room, and went
on: "You were always luring him here, too, yourself; you flattered