e me a few
minutes?"

Paul nodded, and she took a seat near him.

"Father, I am going to leave home, going to be a governess again."

He drew a sigh of relief; he had expected something worse than this.
Yet the relief was only for a moment, and then he looked at her with
eyes which made her soul fail for very compassion.

"You will desert me, Maud?" he asked, trying to convey in his look that
which he could not utter in words.

"Father, I can be of no help, and I feel that I must not remain here."

"Have you found a place?"

"This afternoon I engaged myself to go to Paris with a French family.
They have been in England some time, and want to take back an English
governess for their children."

Paul was silent.

"I leave the day after to-morrow," she added; at first she had feared
to say how soon she was to go.

"You are right," her father said, shifting some papers about with a
tremulous hand. "You are right to leave us. You at least will be safe."

"Safe?" she asked, under her breath.

He looked at her in the same despairing way, but said nothing.

"Father," she began, her lips quivering in the intensity of her inward
struggle, "can you not go away from here? Can you not take mother away?"

They gazed at each other, each trying to divine what it was that made
the other so pale. Did her father know?--Maud asked herself. Did Maud
know something more than he himself?--was the doubt in Paul's mind. But
they were thinking of different things.

"I can't, I can't!" the wretched man exclaimed, spreading out his arms
on the desk. "Perhaps in a few months--but I doubt. I can do nothing
now; I am helpless; I am not my own master. O God, if I could but go
and leave it all behind me!"

Maud could only guess at the meaning of this. He had already hinted to
her of business troubles which were crushing him. But this was a matter
of no moment in her sight. There was something more terrible, and she
could not force her tongue to speak of it.

"You fear for her?" Paul went on. "You have noticed her strangeness?"
He lowered his voice. "What can I do, Maud?"

"You are so much away," she said hurriedly, laying her hand on his arm.
"Her visitors--she has so many temptations--"

"Temptations?"

"Father, help her against herself!"

"My help is vain. There is a curse on her life, and on mine. I can only
stand by and wait for the worst."

She could not speak. It was her duty, clearly her imperative duty, yet
she durs