en herself was
confronted with a suit for defamation of character, and was obliged to
testify before the judge whom Ames owned outright that she had but the
latter's word for the charge, and that, years since, in a moment of
maudlin sentimentalism, he had confessed to her that, as far as he
knew, the wife of his youth was still living. The suit went against
her. Ames then took his heavy toll, and retired within himself to sulk
and plan future assaults and reprisals.

The Beaubien, crushed, broken, sick at heart, gathered up the scant
remains of her once large fortune, disposed of her effects, and
withdrew to the outskirts of the city. She would have left the
country, but for the fact that the tangled state of her finances
necessitated her constant presence in New York while her lawyers
strove to bring order out of chaos and placate her raging persecutor.
To flee meant complete abandonment of her every financial resource to
Ames. And so, with the assistance of Father Waite and Elizabeth Wall,
who placed themselves at once under her command, she took a little
house, far from the scenes of her troubles, and quietly removed
thither with Carmen.

One day shortly thereafter a woman knocked timidly at her door. Carmen
saw the caller and fled into her arms. "It's Jude!" she cried
joyously.

The woman had come to return the string of pearls which the girl had
thrust into her hands on the night of the Charity Ball. Nobody knew
she had them. She had not been able to bring herself to sell them. She
had wanted--oh, she knew not what, excepting that she wanted to see
again the girl whose image had haunted her since that eventful night
when the strange child had wandered into her abandoned life. Yes, she
would have given her testimony as to Carmen; but who would have
believed her, a prostitute? And--but the radiant girl gathered her in
her arms and would not let her go without a promise to return.

And return she did, many times. And each time there was a change in
her. The Beaubien always forced upon her a little money and a promise
to come back. It developed that Jude was cooking in a cheap down-town
restaurant. "Why not for us, mother, if she will?" asked Carmen one
day. And, though the sin-stained woman demurred and protested her
unworthiness, yet the love that knew no evil drew her irresistibly,
and she yielded at length, with her heart bursting.

Then, in her great joy, Carmen's glad cry echoed through the little
house: "