Floyd insists that they
shall discuss the first points without him. Violet is walking up and
down a shady garden path, and he joins her. He would like to take her
in his arms and kiss and comfort her as he does Cecil, she looks so
very like a child, but he has a consciousness that it would not be
proper. He links her arm in his and joins in a promenade, yet they are
both silent, constrained. Yesterday he was her friend, the father of
the little girl she loves; to-day he is some one else that she must
respect and honor.

Wilmarth comes and receives his message with deep vexation. Mr. St.
Vincent will admit him at three. He is no worse, but there is nothing
to hope. Ah, if he were to see the two pacing the walk, he would gnash
his teeth. He fancies he has sown distrust, at least.

By noon the contracts, the will, and all legal papers are drawn and
signed. Everything is inviolably Miss St. Vincent's. Mr. Connery
proposes an excellent and trusty nurse, and will send her immediately,
for Denise and Violet must not be left alone. Grandon turns his steps
homeward.

"Really I did not know whether you were coming back," says his mother,
sharply. "I think, considering Madame Lepelletier leaves us to-morrow
morning, you might have a few hours to devote to your own household. It
seems to me Mr. St. Vincent lasts a long while for a man at the point
of death."

"Mother!" Floyd Grandon is really shocked. His mother is nervous and
ill at ease. All night she has been brooding over what she saw in the
carriage. Floyd will follow madame to Newport in a week or two, and the
matter will be settled. She has no objection to her as a daughter-in-law
if Floyd _must_ marry, but it is bitterly hard to be dethroned, to have
nothing, to live on sufferance.

He turns away, remembering what he ought to tell her, and yet, how can
he? After to-morrow, when Madame Lepelletier has really gone,--and yet
has he any true right to freedom as long as that? He ought to marry
Violet this very day. Since he has resolved, why not make the
resolution an absolute pleasure to the dying man?

Grandon feels the position keenly. Never by word or look has he led
madame to expect any warmer feeling than friendship; indeed, until last
night he had not supposed any other state possible. He could not
imagine himself a part of her fashionable life, and he had not the
vanity to suppose she cared for him, but now he cannot shut his eyes.
There is something in her tone,