hey were on there
rebound, once more in Paris--often as Pemberton had seen them depressed
he had never seen them crushed--and communication was therefore rapid. He
wrote to the boy to ascertain the state of his health, but awaited the
answer in vain. He accordingly, after three days, took an abrupt leave
of the opulent youth and, crossing the Channel, alighted at the small
hotel, in the quarter of the Champs Elysees, of which Mrs. Moreen had
given him the address. A deep if dumb dissatisfaction with this lady and
her companions bore him company: they couldn't be vulgarly honest, but
they could live at hotels, in velvety entresols, amid a smell of burnt
pastilles, surrounded by the most expensive city in Europe. When he had
left them in Venice it was with an irrepressible suspicion that something
was going to happen; but the only thing that could have taken place was
again their masterly retreat. "How is he? where is he?" he asked of Mrs.
Moreen; but before she could speak these questions were answered by the
pressure round hid neck of a pair of arms, in shrunken sleeves, which
still were perfectly capable of an effusive young foreign squeeze.

"Dreadfully ill--I don't see it!" the young man cried. And then to
Morgan: "Why on earth didn't you relieve me? Why didn't you answer my
letter?"

Mrs. Moreen declared that when she wrote he was very bad, and Pemberton
learned at the same time from the boy that he had answered every letter
he had received. This led to the clear inference that Pemberton's note
had been kept from him so that the game practised should not be
interfered with. Mrs. Moreen was prepared to see the fact exposed, as
Pemberton saw the moment he faced her that she was prepared for a good
many other things. She was prepared above all to maintain that she had
acted from a sense of duty, that she was enchanted she had got him over,
whatever they might say, and that it was useless of him to pretend he
didn't know in all his bones that his place at such a time was with
Morgan. He had taken the boy away from them and now had no right to
abandon him. He had created for himself the gravest responsibilities and
must at least abide by what he had done.

"Taken him away from you?" Pemberton exclaimed indignantly.

"Do it--do it for pity's sake; that's just what I want. I can't stand
_this_--and such scenes. They're awful frauds--poor dears!" These words
broke from Morgan, who had intermitted his embra