has been
so much talked about, is a myth."

"What do you mean?" Jeanne asked, looking at her stepmother with
startled eyes.

"Exactly what I say," the Princess continued. "Your father made huge
gifts to his relatives during the last few years of his life, and he
left enormous sums in charity. To you he left the remainder of his
estate, which all the world believed to amount to at least a million
pounds. But when things came to be realized, all his securities seemed
to have depreciated. The legacies were paid in cash. The depreciation
of his fortune all fell upon you. When everything had been paid, there
was something like twenty-five thousand pounds left. More than half of
that has gone in your education, and in an allowance to myself since I
have had the charge of you. There is a little left in the hands of
Monsieur Laplanche, but very little indeed. What there is we owe for
your dresses, the rent of this house, and other things."

"You mean," Jeanne interrupted bewildered, "that I have no money at
all?"

"Practically none," the Princess answered. "Now you can see why it is
so important that you should marry a rich man."

Jeanne was bewildered. It was hard to grasp these things which her
stepmother was telling her.

"If this be true," she said, "how is it that every one speaks of me as
being a great heiress?"

The Princess glanced at her with a contemptuous smile.

"You do not suppose," she said, "that I have found it necessary to take
the whole world into my confidence."

"You mean," Jeanne said, "that people don't know that I am not a great
heiress?"

"Certainly not," the Princess replied, "or we should scarcely be here."

"The Count de Brensault?" Jeanne asked.

"He does not know, of course," the Princess answered. "He is a rich
man. He can afford quite well to marry a girl without a DOT."

Jeanne's head fell slowly between her hands. The suddenness of this
blow had staggered her. It was not the loss of her fortune so much
which affected her as the other contingencies with which she was
surrounded. She tried to think, and the more she thought the more
involved it all seemed. She looked up at last.

"If my fortune is really gone," she said, "why do you let people talk
about it, and write about me in the papers as though I were still so
rich?"

The Princess shrugged her shoulders.

"For your own sake," she answered. "It is necessary to find you a
husband, is it not, and nowadays one does not fin