had come back to him. You can guess ze questions I
poured out, but oh, mes cheres demoiselles, you cannot guess ze sister's
agony when I found zat mon pauvre frere had forgotten every circumstance
of ze past year!"

"Oh, how dreadful!" cried Lilly, her eyes filling with tears. "What did
you do?"

"What _could_ I do? Ze doctair said it was not an uncommon case. There
had been some injury to ze brain. Clement remembered coming to New
Orleans, and making his preparations to go to Florine; but from zat
time all was a dreadful blank. I drove him almost wild with my tears and
questions, for what had become of Florine? As soon as he was well, and
we could get away from the city, we went to Texas to try and find her,
but our search was all in vain.

"And now you can judge what I felt when I saw ze star buttons in zis
young lady's ears."--She turned to Lilly, and spoke in a voice all
broken with emotion: "It seemed that at last I had a key to unlock ze
door of that sad year. Tell me quickly, mademoiselle, where did you get
them? Did Florine give them to you? Is she dead? Tell me all."

"You are deceived, Miss Gardine," said Lilly, almost ready to burst into
tears. "All I can tell is very little. A trunk was brought to my uncle's
in Galveston by a young man, who rushed off before uncle could even ask
his name. From that day we have never heard from him, and out of
curiosity my sister and I persuaded Uncle David to let us open the
trunk."

Miss Gardine clasped her hands tragically: "Helas! after so much hope to
find only disappointment! Ze saddest part of it all is this," she went
on. "Since it all happened mon pauvre frere has been so miserable zat
sometimes he loses his mind: he is _mad_. No one knows this but
myself--no one shall know. In society he is ze elegant young man: yes,
people who admire him little dream when he is away, and they think him
on his plantation up ze Bayou Teche, zat he is in a private madhouse in
ze city, watched over by poor Vera."

She raised her handkerchief to her eyes, and Lilly and I looked at each
other with deep, silent sympathy.

"This is why I have begged your secrecy," she said. "Your chaperone,
Madame Long, possibly knows many people: she would talk. Ze misfortunes
of Clement Gardine must not be talked over by ze vulgaire herd."

"I am sure," said I diffidently, "that Mrs. Long would be prudent."

"My dear child," said mademoiselle, smiling sadly, "it is better not to
put her to ze