use standing in the
midst of grounds once trim and handsome, but now showing signs of
neglect and penury, simply said, "'Ere, sir." And here the party
dismounted.

Cram entered the gate and pulled a clanging bell. The door was almost
instantly opened by a colored girl, at whose side, with eager joyous
face, was the pretty child he had seen so often playing about the
Lascelles homestead, and the eager joyous look faded instantly away.

"She t'ink it M'sieur Vareeng who comes to arrive," explained the
smiling colored girl.

"Ah! It is Madame d'Hervilly I wish to see," answered Cram, briefly.
"Please take her my card." And, throwing off his dripping raincoat and
tossing it to Jeffers, who had followed to the veranda, the captain
stepped within the hall and held forth his hands to Nin Nin, begging her
to come to him who was so good a friend of Mr. Waring. But she would
not. The tears of disappointment were in the dark eyes as the little one
turned and ran away. Cram could hear the gentle, soothing tones of the
mother striving to console her child,--the one widowed and the other
orphaned by the tidings he bore. Even then he noted how musical, how
full of rich melody, was that soft Creole voice. And then Madame
d'Hervilly appeared, a stately, dignified, picturesque gentlewoman of
perhaps fifty years. She greeted him with punctilious civility, but with
manner as distant as her words were few.

"I have come on a trying errand," he began, when she held up a slender,
jewelled hand.

"_Pardon. Permettez._--Madame Lascelles," she called, and before Cram
could find words to interpose, a servant was speeding to summon the very
woman he had hoped not to have to see.

"Oh, madame," he murmured low, hurriedly, "I deplore my ignorance. I
cannot speak French. Try to understand me. Mr. Lascelles is home,
dangerously stricken. I fear the worst. You must tell her."

"'Ome! _La bas? C'est impossible._"

"It is true," he burst in, for the swish of silken skirt was heard down
the long passage. "_Il est mort_,--_mort_" he whispered, mustering up
what little French he knew and then cursing himself for an imbecile.

"_Mort! O ciel!_" The words came with a shriek of anguish from the lips
of the elder woman and were echoed by a scream from beyond. In an
instant, wild-eyed, horror-stricken, Emilie Lascelles had sprung to her
tottering mother's side.

"When? What mean you?" she gasped.

"Madame Lascelles," he sadly spoke, "I had hoped to