ment, and at
night she locked herself into her chamber and barricaded the door, as if
a mad dog or a murderer were at large in the chateau.

Giselle came into her room at an early hour.

"Is what you said yesterday the truth, Jacqueline? Is Modeste really ill?
Are you sure you have had no reason to complain of anybody in this
place?--of any one?"

Then, after a pause, she added:

"Oh, my darling, how hard it is to do good even to those whom we most
dearly love."

"I don't understand you," said Jacqueline, with an effort. "Everybody has
been kind to me."

They kissed each other with effusion, but M. de Talbrun's leave-taking
was icy in the extreme. Jacqueline had made a mortal enemy.

The grand outline of the chateau, built of brick and stone with its wings
flanked by towers, the green turf of the great park in which it stood,
passed from her sight as she drove away, like some vision in a dream.

"I shall never come back--never come back!" thought Jacqueline. She felt
as if she had been thrust out everywhere. For one moment she thought of
seeking refuge at Lizerolles, which was not very many miles from the
railroad station, and when there of telling Madame d'Argy of her
difficulties, and asking her advice; but false pride kept her from doing
so--the same false pride which had made her write coldly, in answer to
the letters full of feeling and sympathy Fred had written to her on
receiving news of her father's death.

CHAPTER XV

TREACHEROUS KINDNESS

The experience through which Jacqueline had just passed was not
calculated to fortify her or to elevate her soul. She felt for the first
time that her unprotected situation and her poverty exposed her to
insult, for what other name could she give to the outrageous behavior of
M. de Talbrun, which had degraded her in her own eyes?

What right had that man to treat her as his plaything? Her pride and all
her womanly instincts rose up in rebellion. Her nerves had been so shaken
that she sobbed behind her veil all the way to her destination. Paris,
when she reached it, offered her almost nothing that could comfort or
amuse her. That city is always empty and dull in August, more so than at
any other season. Even the poor occupation of teaching her little class
of music pupils had been taken away by the holidays. Her sole resource
was in Modeste's society. Modeste--who, by the way, had never been ill,
and who suffered from nothing but old age--was delighted to