ince thou departed, Philippe."

As for Mademoiselle, I began to think that Nick was not far wrong in his
diagnosis. Training may have had something to do with it. She would not
laugh, not she, but once or twice she raised her napkin to her face and
coughed slightly. For the rest, she sat demurely, with her eyes on her
plate, a model of propriety. Nick's sufferings became more
comprehensible.

To give the devil his due, Nick had an innate tact which told him when to
stop, and perhaps at this time Mademoiselle's superciliousness made him
subside the more quickly. After Monsieur de St. Gre had explained to me
the horrors of the indigo pest and the futility of sugar raising, he
turned to his daughter.

"'Toinette, where is Madame Clive?" he asked. The girl looked up,
startled into life and interest at once.

"Oh, papa," she cried in French, "we are so worried about her, mamma and
I. It was the day you went away, the day these gentlemen came, that we
thought she would take an airing. And suddenly she became worse."

Monsieur de St. Gre turned with concern to his wife.

"I do not know what it is, Philippe," said that lady; "it seems to be
mental. The loss of her husband weighs upon her, poor lady. But this is
worse than ever, and she will lie for hours with her face turned to the
wall, and not even Antoinette can arouse her."

"I have always been able to comfort her before," said Antoinette, with a
catch in her voice.

I took little account of what was said after that, my only notion being
to think the problem out for myself, and alone. As I was going to my
room Nick stopped me.

"Come into the garden, Davy," he said.

"When I have had my siesta," I answered.

"When you have had your siesta!" he cried; "since when did you begin to
indulge in siestas?"

"To-day," I replied, and left him staring after me.

I reached my room, bolted the door, and lay down on my back to think.
Little was needed to convince me now that Mrs. Clive was Mrs. Temple, and
thus the lady's relapse when she heard that her son was in the house was
accounted for. Instead of forming a plan, my thoughts drifted from that
into pity for her, and my memory ran back many years to the text of good
Mr. Mason's sermon, "I have refined thee, but not with silver, I have
chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." What must Sarah Temple have
suffered since those days! I remembered her in her prime, in her beauty,
in her selfishness, in her cruelty to tho