her once in the barley-field; a note or
two; a book of collected poems, marked. Trifling things, indeed! but her
heart throbbed with the sense of his presence as she held them in her
hands.

In the next room Nora was clattering some tea things, making the plain,
homely bustle that frequently keeps one sane. Out-of-doors it was one of
Paris' divine gray days, with pinks and lavenders showing in the
shadows; but neither the in-door noise nor the outside beauty held her.
She was back in the Carolinas with her first love; there was the odor of
pine and honeysuckle in the Paris air, a harvest moon in the sky.

"To forgive and forget and understand."

On the impulse of the moment she decided to write her story to the
unknown with no names, telling the pain which haunted her always; the
pain which she felt would be hers until the end. Having finished the
narrative, she concluded:

"I am trying to make it very clear to you. You have been, you are,
so kind. But I want you to know about me exactly as I am. The world
would say that this man did not treat me well. He had faults; he
had ignorances; we are none of us perfect; he was not a great man.
But he was just as I would have him."

And, womanlike, she added a postscript:

"You send me too much money. Lessons in fencing, dancing,
languages, music, cost a great deal. I have not been spending it
all, although I have been helping an art student, who has almost
starved himself to death in a room built on a roof, painting by
candle-light.

"P.P.S.--Also a girl who tried to drown herself because she cannot
sing, but she writes beautifully. I will send you one of her poems,
to show you she is worth helping.

[Illustration]

"P.P.P.S.--Also a very poor rag-picker with, I think, twelve
children. He looks even worse than this."

The routine of her life having been thoroughly established the preceding
winter, she fell easily again into the old lines. Every day she lunched
with Madame de Nemours. Sometimes, when engagements left them both free,
they dined together in quite a stately manner in the high, old tapestry
room, and once in a fortnight she was bidden to dinner with friends of
this great lady--Bartand, the dramatist; President Arnot; or Prince
Cassini, with his terrible vitality and schemes for universal
betterment.

One morning she was disturbed at her studies by a card from the
Countess, sayi