and a
gardener by profession.

On the death of her father, Maxine had come to an arrangement with her
mother, eminently suited to the minds and tastes of both women.

Maxine absolutely refused to touch any part of the colossal fortune left
by her father. She knew how it had been come by, and as she had a small
fortune of her own, a very small fortune of some ten thousand francs a
year settled on her by an uncle at her birth, she determined to live on
it, and go her own way in life.

Art was to her far preferable to society, and in a little cottage with one
woman for a servant, ten thousand francs a year were affluence.

Madame Berselius, who had no scruple in using money obtained in any way
whatsoever, fell in with her daughter's views after a few formal
objections.

Gillette had furnished the cottage as only a French firm can furnish a
cottage, and the garden, which had gone to decay, Maxine had furnished
herself with the help of Father Champardy.

Adams, after the death of Berselius, had lingered on in Paris to settle up
his affairs, going back to the Rue Dijon and taking up his old life
precisely at the point where he had broken it off.

But he was richer by three things. Two days after Berselius's death, news
came to him from America of the death of an uncle whom he had never seen
and the fact that he had inherited his property. It was not very much as
money goes in America, but it was real estate in New York City and would
bring in some seven or eight hundred pounds a year. He was richer by the
experience he had gained and the Humanity he had discovered in himself,
and he was richer by his love for Maxine.

But love itself was subordinate in the mind of Adams to the burning
question that lay at his heart. He had put his hand to the plough, and he
was not the man to turn aside till the end of the furrow was reached. He
would have time to go to America, in any event, to look after his
property. He decided to stay some months in England; to attack the British
Lion in its stronghold; to explain the infamies of the Congo, and then
cross the Atlantic and put the matter before the American Eagle.

He did.

For seven months he had been away, and every week he had written to
Maxine, saying little enough about the progress of his work, and
frequently using the cryptic statement, "I will tell you everything when I
come back."

And "He will be back to-day," murmured Maxine, as she stood in the little
garden watch