oom when we are here alone."

"I am quite warm," said Vanderlyn quickly. "Besides, I shall only be
here a very few moments."

The woman gave him a curious, rather suspicious look, and went to find
her mistress.

Vanderlyn, in spite of the words he had just uttered, suddenly told
himself that, he felt cold--cold and dizzy. He moved over to the window.
It overhung a wooded precipice, below which sparkled the Seine,--that
same river into whose dark depths he had gazed so despairingly the night
before. Here, looking at the sunlit panorama of wood, water, and sky
spread out before him, Peggy must often have stood. For the first time
since the terrible moment when he had watched the train bearing her dead
body disappear into the darkness, Vanderlyn thought of her as living; he
seemed to feel her soft, warm presence in this place which she had
loved, and where she had spent peaceful, happy hours.

He heard the door open and shut, and, turning round, found himself face
to face with the Frenchwoman whom he knew to have been Margaret
Pargeter's devoted friend. Although he was well aware that Madame de
Lera had never liked or trusted him, he, on his side, had always admired
and appreciated her serenity and simple dignity of demeanour. As she
came forward, clad in the austere dress of a French widow, he noted the
expression of constraint, of surprise, on her worn face.

"Mr. Vanderlyn?" she said, interrogatively; and, as she waited for an
explanation of the American's presence, surprise gave way to a look of
great sternness and severity, almost of dislike. Nay more, Madame de
Lera's attitude was instinct with protest--the protest of an honest
woman drawn unwillingly into what she feels to be an atmosphere of
untruth and intrigue. She was telling herself that she owed the fact of
Vanderlyn's visit to some slight hitch in the plan in which she had been
persuaded to play the part of an accomplice; she felt that Margaret
Pargeter ought not to have subjected her to an interview with her lover.

Vanderlyn reddened. He felt suddenly angered. Madame de Lera's manner
was insulting, not only to him, but--but to Mrs. Pargeter, to his poor
dead love. Any thought of telling Madame de Lera the truth, or even part
of the truth, left him.

"You must forgive my intrusion," he said, coldly; "I have come with a
message from Mr. Pargeter. He believes his wife to be here, and he
wishes her to be informed that her son, little Jasper, has had an