the first
thing that he saw, my poor boy, that account of me. But he would not
come here or let me know he was in England, lest I should be troubled
about him, and he did not wish me to know, besides, that he was poor
and distressed. I am sure of that, although he does not tell me."

She left the room, and ran fleetly up-stairs to her own sitting-room.
The children were in bed, and there was no one to see her as she drew
her writing-case toward her, and wrote swiftly:

"I have succeeded; my cause was won before I had time to plead it. You
are at liberty to come here. If, once here, you will succeed in doing
what you desire, I cannot tell. It is your affair, not mine. I have
done my part. Come then, and remember yours--my brother."

* * * * *

Doctor Brudenell, paying his visit to the governess's sitting-room the
next evening to bid his nephews and niece good-night, found there, not
the children, but a stranger. His momentary look of surprise vanished
as he recollected; and, while he spoke a few rather embarrassed words
of greeting and welcome, he keenly scanned Gustave Boucheafen.

He was a handsome young fellow, tall, slender, and dark, and looking
very boyish, in spite of some deep lines on the white forehead and
about the small, tightly-compressed lips. His clothes were shabby,
almost threadbare; there was an air of carelessness, even recklessness,
about him, and yet there was something that was far more easy to feel
than to describe which proclaimed him to be a gentlemen. All this the
Doctor noted as he took the soft slim hand, and answered as briefly as
he could the voluble speech of thanks which the young man tendered him,
speaking in English less correct than Alexia's and with a certain
extravagance of expression and manner which discomfited George
Brudenell, and which he decided was wholly French.

But, although embarrassed, as he always was by anything fresh and new,
he spoke very kindly and encouragingly to the brother, conscious always
of the sister's beautiful eyes resting gently upon him; and, after a
few questions asked and answered, he left the two to themselves, and
was called out shortly afterward to attend a very stout old gentleman
whom he had warned six months before to take his choice between present
port-wine and future apoplexy. The old gentleman, being as obstinate as
old people of both sexes occasionally are, had heroically chosen the
port; and