land? Do you never get weary or feel bored? Have
you anything to amuse you? _I_ have become satiated with my
life--lying, cheating, deceiving every day in order to live! While
I was a little girl I was proud of the praises heaped upon me for
my cleverness. But a day came when everything disgusted me. It is
an infamous trade, this of ours, little mama, and I have given it
up. I have begun to lead a different life--one with which I am
satisfied; and if you will take the advice of one who wishes you
well, you, too, will quit the old ways. You can embroider
beautifully and play the piano like a master. You could earn a
livelihood giving lessons in either. Do not trouble any further
about me, for I can take care of myself. If only you knew how much
happier I am now, you would rejoice, I know! Let me beg you to
become honest and truthful, and think often of your old friend and
little daughter,

"AMELIE (now SOEUER AGNES)."

Katharina's nerveless hands dropped to her lap. This sharp rebuke from
her only child was deserved.

Then she sprang suddenly toward her visitor, grasped his arm, and cried:

"Tell me--tell me about my daughter, my little Amelie! How does she look
now? Is she much changed? Has she grown? Oh, M. Cambray! in pity tell
me--tell me about her!"

"I have brought you a portrait of her as she looked when I saw her
last."

He drew from his pocket a small case, and, opening it, disclosed a
pallid face with closed eyes. A wreath of myrtle encircled the head,
which rested on the pillow of a coffin.

"She is dead!" screamed the horror-stricken mother, staring with wild
eyes at the sorrowful picture.

"Yes, madame, she is dead," assented the marquis. "This portrait is sent
by your daughter as a remembrance to the mother who exposed her on the
streets, one stormy winter night, in order that she might spy upon
another little child--a persecuted and homeless little child."

The baroness cowered beneath the merciless words as beneath a stinging
lash: but the man knew no pity; he would not spare the heartbroken
woman.

"And now, madame," he continued in a sharp tone, "you can go back to
your home and take possession of your reward. You have worked hard to
earn the blood-money."

Here the baroness sat suddenly upright, tore from her bosom a small gold
note-case, in which was the order for the five millions of francs. She
opened the case