d for two
months."

I looked at her steadily. "Eliminate Mornac as a trapped rat; cancel
him as a dead rat since the ship of Empire went down at Sedan. I do
not know what has taken place in Paris--save what all now know that
the Empire is ended, the Republic proclaimed, and the Imperial police
a memory. Then let us strike out Mornac and turn to Buckhurst. Madame,
I am here to serve you."

The dazed horror in her face which had marked my revelations of
Buckhurst's villanies gave place to a mantling flush of pure anger.
Shame crimsoned her neck, too; shame for her credulous innocence, her
belief in this rogue who had betrayed her, only to receive pardon for
the purpose of baser and more murderous betrayal.

I said nothing for a long time, content to leave her to her own
thoughts. The bitter draught she was draining could not harm her,
could not but act as the most wholesome of tonics.

Hers was not a weak character to sink, embittered, under the weight of
knowledge--knowledge of evil, that all must learn to carry lightly
through life; I had once thought her weak, but I had revised that
opinion and substituted the words "pure in thought, inherently loyal,
essentially unsuspicious."

"Tell me about Buckhurst," I said, quietly. "I can help you, I
think."

The quick tears of humiliation glimmered for a second in her angry
eyes; then pride fell from her, like a stately mantle which a princess
puts aside, tired and content to rest.

This was a phase I had never before seen--a lovely, natural young
girl, perplexed, troubled, deeply wounded, ready to be guided, ready
for reproof, perhaps even for that sympathy without which reproof is
almost valueless.

She told me that Buckhurst came to her house here in Paradise early in
September; that while in Paris, pondering on what I had said, she had
determined to withdraw herself absolutely from all organized
socialistic associations during the war; that she believed she could
do the greatest good by living a natural and cheerful life, by
maintaining the position that birth and fortune had given her, and by
using that position and fortune for the benefit of those less
fortunate.

This she had told Buckhurst, and the rascal appeared to agree with her
so thoroughly that, when Dr. Delmont and Professor Tavernier arrived,
they also applauded the choice she made of Buckhurst as distributer of
money, food, and clothing to the provincial hospitals, now crowded to
suffocation with