ence which almost reached the point of embarrassment, before he
broke it with the harsh remark:

"Your French may be good, but it does not go with me. Yet is it more
intelligible than your English. What do you want here? What have you in
that bag you wish to open; and what do you mean by the sentimental trash
with which you offer it?"

"Ah, monsieur has not memory of me," came in the sweetest tones of
a really seductive voice. "You astonish me, monsieur. I thought you
knew--everybody else does--Oh, tout le monde, monsieur, that I was Miss
Challoner's maid--near her when other people were not--near her the very
day she died."

A pause; then an angry exclamation from some one. Sweetwater thought
from the brother, who may have misinterpreted some look or gesture on
Brotherson's part. Brotherson himself would not be apt to show surprise
in any such noisy way.

"I saw many things--Oh many things--" the girl proceeded with an
admirable mixture of suggestion and reserve. "That day and other days
too. She did not talk--Oh, no, she did not talk, but I saw--Oh, yes,
I saw that she--that you--I'll have to say it, monsieur, that you were
tres bons amis after that week in Lenox."

"Well?" His utterance of this word was vigorous, but not tender. "What
are you coming to? What can you have to show me in this connection that
I will believe in for a moment?"

"I have these--is monsieur certaine that no one can hear? I wouldn't
have anybody hear what I have to tell you, for the world--for all the
world."

"No one can overhear."

For the first time that day Sweetwater breathed a full, deep breath.
This assurance had sounded heartfelt. "Blessings on her cunning young
head. She thinks of everything."

"You are unhappy. You have thought Miss Challoner cold;--that she had
no response for your ver ardent passion. But--" these words were uttered
sotto voce and with telling pauses "--but--I--know--ver much better
than that. She was ver proud. She had a right; she was no poor girl like
me--but she spend hours--hours in writing letters she--nevaire send.
I saw one, just once, for a leetle minute; while you could breathe so
short as that; and began with Cheri, or your English for that, and ended
with words--Oh, ver much like these: You may nevaire see these lines,
which was ver interesting, veree so, and made one want to see what she
did with letters she wrote and nevaire mail; so I watch and look,
and one day I see them. She had a leetl