, "What are your
plans, Madame?" Jeanne was for a few seconds literally dumb with anger
and astonishment.

Then she poured out all the pent-up hatred of her vulgar soul. It was a
horrible scene. Willan conducted himself throughout the interview with
perfect calmness; the same impassable distance which had always been so
exasperating to Jeanne was doubly so now. He treated her as if she were
merely some dependant of the house, for whom he, as the executor of the
will, was about to provide according to instructions.

"If I can't live in my own house," cried the angry woman, "I'll go back
to my father and tend bar again; and how'll you like that?"

"It is purely immaterial to me, Madame," replied Willan, "where you
live. I merely wish to know your address, that I may forward to you the
quarterly payments of your annuity. I should think it probable," he
added with an irony which was not thrown away on Jeanne, "that you
would be happier among your own relations and in the occupations to
which you were accustomed in your youth."

Jeanne was not deficient in spirit. As soon as she had ascertained
beyond a doubt that all that Willan had told her was true, and that
there was no possibility of her ever getting from the estate anything
except her annuity, she packed up all her possessions and left the
house. No fine instinct had restrained her from laying, hands on
everything to which she could be said to have a shadow of
claim,--indeed, on many things to which she had not,--and even Willan
himself, who had been prepared for her probable greed, was surprised
when on returning to the house late one evening he found the piazza
piled high from one end to the other with her boxes. Jeanne stood by
with a defiant air, superintending the cording of the last one. She
anticipated some remonstrance or inquiry from Willan, and was half
disappointed when he passed by, giving no sign of having observed the
boxes at all, and simply lifting his hat to her with his usual
formality. The next morning, instead of the public vehicle which Jeanne
had engaged to call for her, her own coach and the gray horses she had
best liked were driven to the door. This unexpected tribute from Willan
almost disarmed her for the moment. It was her coach almost more than
her house which she had grieved to lose.

"Well, really, Mr. Willan," she exclaimed, "I never once thought of
taking that, though there's no doubt about its being my own, and your
father'd tell