wire when you know_."

As he read the letter through for the second time, he could hear through
the open window of his room a woman's voice singing one of Gaeta's
songs, the one most popular: "Forever--never! Who knows?"

The words mingled themselves with the words of the letter: "Come back.
Bring good news. Forever--never! Who knows?" And the song was from the
last act of "Girls' Love."

CHAPTER IV

THE UPPER BERTH

When he had learned at the village of La Tour that Doctor Lefebre had
left the place long ago, to practise in Paris, Max went there, and found
Lefebre without difficulty. He was now, at fifty, a well-known man,
still young looking, but with a somewhat melancholy face, and the long
eyelids that mean Jewish ancestry. When he had listened to Max's story
he said, with a thoughtful smile: "Do you see, it is to you I owe my
success? I have never repented what I did for Madame. Still less do I
repent now, having met you. I gained advantages for myself that I could
not otherwise have had; and to-day proves that I gave them to one who
Has known how to profit by every gift. The _other_--the girl--would not
have known how. There was something strange about the child, something
not right, not normal. I have often wondered what she has become. But it
is better for you not to think of her. Fate has shut a door between you
two. Don't open it. That is the advice, Monsieur, of the man who brought
you into this very extraordinary world."

Max thanked him, but answered that, for good or ill, he had made up his
mind. Doctor Lefebre shrugged his shoulders with an air of resigned
regret, and told what little he knew of the Delatours since he had sent
the young woman off to Algeria with the baby. The first thing he had
heard was four or five years after, when he paid a visit to La Tour, and
was told that Maxime Delatour had left the army and settled permanently
in Algeria. Then, no more news for several years, until one day a letter
had been forwarded to him in Paris from his old address at La Tour. It
was from Madame Delatour, dated "Hotel Pension Delatour, Alger," asking
guardedly if he would tell her where she might write to the American
lady whose child had been born at the chateau. "The lady who had been
kind to her and her baby." She would like to send news of little
Josephine, in whom the lady might still take an interest. Madame
Delatour had added in a postscript that she and her husband were keeping
a smal