sions as to her position. When the estate had been settled there
would be nothing left but poverty, not only for herself, who, having
brought her husband no dot, had no right to consider herself wronged by
the bankruptcy, but for Jacqueline, whose fortune, derived from her
mother, had suffered under her father's management (there are such
men--unfaithful guardians of a child's property, but yet good fathers) in
every way in which it was possible to evade the provisions of the Code
intended to protect the rights of minor children. In the little salon so
charmingly furnished, where never before had sorrow or sadness been
discussed, Madame de Nailles poured out her complaints to her
stepdaughter and insisted upon plans of strict economy, when M. de
Cymier's letter was brought in.

"Read!" said the Baroness, handing the strange document to Jacqueline,
after she had read it through.

Then she leaned back in her chair with a gesture which signified: "This
is the last straw!" and remained motionless, apparently overwhelmed, with
her face covered by one hand, but furtively watching the face of the girl
so cruelly forsaken.

That face told nothing, for pride supplies some sufferers with necessary
courage. Jacqueline sat for some time with her eyes fixed on the decisive
adieu which swept away what might have been her secret hope. The paper
did not tremble in her hand, a half-smile of contempt passed over her
mouth. The answer to the restless question that had intruded itself upon
her in the first moments of her grief was now before her. Its promptness,
its polished brutality, had given her a shock, but not the pain she had
expected. Perhaps her great grief--the real, the true, the grief death
brings--recovered its place in her heart, and prevented her from feeling
keenly any secondary emotion. Perhaps this man, who could pay court to
her in her days of happiness and disappear when the first trouble came,
seemed to her not worth caring for.

She silently handed back the letter to her stepmother.

"No more than I expected," said the Baroness.

"Indeed?" replied Jacqueline with complete indifference. She wished to
give no opening to any expressions of sympathy on the part of Madame de
Nailles.

"Poor Madame d'Avrigny," she added, "has bad luck; all her actors seem to
be leaving her."

This speech was the vain bravado of a young soldier going into action.
The poor child betrayed herself to the experienced woman, trained eith