eath the balcony, and the
clangor of drums and bugles climbed between the stone walls, as if to
pour all its mockery into the little room.

Ralph Flare hated to see a woman cry; it pained him more than her; so he
lifted her in his arms and carried her to the sofa and placed her head
upon his breast. For a long while she sat in that strange luxury of
grief, and she was fearful that he would send her away before her
agitation could pass, and she might speak. His face wore an incredulous
sneer as she spoke, though he knew it was absolute truth. She told him
how wretched she had been, so wretched that even temptation respected
her; how she had never known the intensity of her passion for him till
they were asunder; how all previous attachments were as ice to fire
compared to this; and how the consciousness of its termination should
make her desolate forever.

"I looked upon you," she said, "as one whom I had trained up. Since I
have lost my little Jules I have needed something to care for. I taught
you to speak my language as if you were a baby. You learned the coinage
of the land, and how to walk through the city, and all customs and
places, precisely as a child learns them from his mother. Alas! you were
wiser than I, and it made me sad to feel it. It was like the mother's
regret that her boy is getting above her, in mind, in stature, so that
he shall be able to do without her. Yet with that fear there is a pride
like mine, when I felt that you were clever. Ah! Ralph, you loved to
make me feel how weak and mean I was. You played with my poor heart,
sick enough before, and little by little I felt your love gliding away
from me, till at last you told me that it was gone. You said you should
leave France, never to return--God forgive you if it was not true!--and
when you treated me worst, I was tempted to hear kind words from
another. Fanchette's friend has a rich cousin who admires me. He is to
live in Paris many years. I never loved him, but I am poor, and many
women marry only for a home. He offered that and more to me. I would not
hear it. Oh! if you had only said one tender word to me in those days of
temptation. I begged you for it. When I was humblest at your feet you
put your heel upon me most.

"One night when I had the greatest trouble of all he sat beside me and
plied his suit, and was pleasanter, my boy, than you have ever been; and
then, rising, he placed that box of jewelry in my lap and ran away. I
left it