--,
or Madame de V------," that she must meet Jack in secret, all this
revolted her.

The astute priest had struck well.

"You are cruel with me, sir. You oblige me to refuse the favor for which
I have so earnestly entreated, but I must protect my dignity as woman
and mother. Your conditions are impossible. And what would my child
think--"

She stopped, for outside the glass she saw the fair, curly head of the
child, with eyes brightened by the fresh air and by his anxiety. Upon a
sign from his mother, he entered quickly.

"Ah, mamma, how good you are! I was afraid you were gone!"

She took his hand hastily.

"You will go with me," she answered; "we are not wanted here."

And she sailed out erect and haughty, leading the boy, who was stupefied
by this departure which so strongly resembled a flight. She hardly
acknowledged the respectful salute of the good father, who had also
risen hastily from his chair; but quickly as she moved, it was not too
quick for Jack to hear a gentle voice murmur, "Poor child! poor child!"
in a tone of compassion that went to his heart. He was pitied--and why?
For a long time he pondered over this.

The Superior was not mistaken. Madame la Comtesse Ida de Barancy was not
a comtesse at all. Her name was not Barancy, and possibly not even
Ida. Whence came she? Who was she? No one could say. These complicated
existences have fortunes so diverse, a past so long and so varied, that
one never knows the last shape they assume. One might liken them to
those revolving lighthouses that have long intervals of shadow between
their gleams of fire. Of one thing only was there any certainty: she
was not a Parisian, but came from some provincial town whose accent she
still retained. It was said that at the Gymnase, one evening, two Lyons
merchants thought they recognized in her a certain Melanie Favrot, who
formerly kept an establishment of "gloves and perfumery;" but these
merchants were mistaken.

Again, an officer in the Hussars insisted that he had seen her eight
years before at Orleans. He also was mistaken. And we all know that
resemblances are often impertinences.

Madame de Barancy had however travelled much, and made no concealment of
the fact, but an absolute sorcerer would have been needed to evolve any
facts from the contradictory accounts she gave of her origin and her
life. One day Ida was born in the colonies, spoke of her mother, a
charming creole, of her plantation and her negroe