ne whose opinions count with him; whom
he can trust--"

"But, monsieur, alas!" broke in the Clerk of the Court, "that is the
trouble; he does not select those he can trust. He is too confiding.
He believes those who flatter him, who impose on his good heart. It has
always been so."

"I judge it is so still in the case of Monsieur Dolores, his daughter's
grandfather?" the Big Financier asked quizzically.

"It is so, monsieur," replied M. Fille. "The loss of his daughter shook
him even more than the flight of his wife; and it is as though he could
not live without that scoundrel near him--a vicious man, who makes
trouble wherever he goes. He was a cause of loss to M. Barbille years
ago when he managed the ash-factory; he is very dangerous to women--even
now he is a danger to the future of a young widow" (he meant the widow
of Palass Poucette); "and he has caused a scandal by perjury as a
witness, and by the consequences--but I need not speak of that here. He
will do Jean Jacques great harm in the end, of that I am sure. The very
day Mademoiselle Zoe left the Manor Cartier to marry the English actor,
Jean Jacques took that Spanish bad-lot to his home; and there he stays,
and the old friends go--the old friends go; and he does not seem to miss
them."

There was something like a sob in M. Fille's voice. He had loved Zoe in
a way that in a mother would have meant martyrdom, if necessary, and
in a father would have meant sacrifice when needed; and indeed he had
sacrificed both time and money to find Zoe. He had even gone as far as
Winnipeg on the chance of finding her, making that first big journey in
the world, which was as much to him in all ways as a journey to Bagdad
would mean to most people of M. Mornay's world. Also he had spent money
since in corresponding with lawyers in the West whom he engaged to
search for her; but Zoe had never been found. She had never written
but one letter to Jean Jacques since her flight. This letter said,
in effect, that she would come back when her husband was no longer "a
beggar" as her father had called him, and not till then. It was written
en route to Winnipeg, at the dictation of Gerard Fynes, who had a
romantic view of life and a mistaken pride, but some courage too--the
courage of love.

"He thinks his daughter will come back--yes?" asked M. Mornay. "Once
he said to me that he was sorry there was no lady to welcome me at the
Manor Cartier, but that he hoped his daughter would ye