this reason it is well that Captain Dalrymple is
not here. His presence just now in Paris could do no good--on the
contrary, would be certain to do harm. Do you follow my meaning,
Monsieur Arbuthnot?"

"I understand what you say, Madame; but...."

"But you do not quite understand why I say it? _Eh bien_, Monsieur, when
you write to Captain Dalrymple.... for you write sometimes, do you not?"

"Often, Madame."

"Then, when you write, say nothing that may add to his anxieties. If you
have reason at any time to suppose that I am importuned to do this or
that; that I am annoyed; that I have my own battle to fight--still, for
his sake as well as for mine, be silent. It _is_ my own battle, and I
know how to fight it."

"Alas! Madame...."

She smiled sadly.

"Nay," she said, "I have more courage than you would suppose; more
courage and more will. I am fully capable of bearing my own burdens; and
Captain Dalrymple has already enough of his own. Now tell me something
of yourself. You are here, I think, to study medicine. Are you greatly
devoted to your work? Have you many friends?"

"I study, Madame--not always very regularly; and I have one friend."

"An Englishman?"

"No, Madame--a German."

"A fellow-student, I presume."

"No, Madame--an artist."

"And you are very happy here?"

"I have occupations and amusements; therefore, if to be neither idle nor
dull is to be happy. I suppose I am happy."

"Nay," she said quickly, "be sure of it. Do not doubt it. Who asks more
from Fate courts his own destruction."

"But it would be difficult, Madame, to go through life without desiring
something better, something higher--without ambition, for
instance--without love."

"Ambition and love!" she repeated, smiling sadly. "There speaks the man.
Ambition first--the aim and end of life; love next--the pleasant adjunct
to success! Ah, beware of both."

"But without either, life would be a desert."

"Life _is_ a desert," she replied, bitterly. "Ambition is its mirage,
ever beckoning, ever receding--love its Dead Sea fruit, fair without and
dust within. You look surprised. You did not expect such gloomy theories
from me--yet I am no cynic. I have lived; I have suffered; I am a
woman--_voila tout_. When you are a few years older, and have trodden
some of the flinty ways of life, you will see the world as I see it."

"It may be so, Madame; but if life is indeed a desert, it is, at all
events, some satisfaction to know tha