rely your religion teaches
you---- Why, you are sinning now, when you hate this girl!"

"I do not hate her. God made her as he made the lizard. I simply will
not allow her to cross my path. What has religion to do with it? I am
clean and she is vile. That is all there is to say."

Both women were silent. Mrs. Waldeaux got up at last and caught Clara
by the arm. She was trembling violently. "No, I'm not ill. I'm well
enough. But you don't understand! That woman has killed George. I
spent twenty years in making him what he is. I worked--there was
nothing but him for me in the world. I didn't spare myself. To make
him a gentleman--a Christian. And in a month she turns him into a
thing like herself. He is following her vulgar courses. I saw the
difference after he had lived with her for one day. He is tainted."
She stood staring into the dull lamp. "She may not live long, though,"
she said. "She doesn't look strong----"

"Frances! For God's sake!"

"Well, what of it? Why shouldn't I wish her gone? The harm--the harm!
Do you remember that Swedish maid I had--a great fair woman? One day
she was stung by a green fly, and in a week she was dead, her whole
body a mass of corruption! Oh, God lets such things be done! Nothing
but a green fly----" She shook off Clara's hold, drawing her breath
with difficulty. "That is Lisa. It is George that is being poisoned,
body and soul. It's a pity to see my boy killed by a thing like
that--it's a pity----"

Miss Vance was too frightened to argue with her. She brought her
wrapper, loosened her hair, soothing her in little womanish ways. But
her burning curiosity drove her presently to ask one question.

"How can they live?"

"I have doubled his allowance."

"Frances! You will work harder to make money for Lisa Arpent?"

"Oh, what is money!" cried Frances, pushing her away impatiently.

CHAPTER V

Miss Vance persuaded Mrs. Waldeaux to go with her to Scotland. During
the weeks that followed Frances always found Lucy Dunbar at her side in
the trains or on the coaches.

"She is a very companionable child," she told Clara. "I often forget
that I am any older than she. She never tires of hearing stories of
George's scrapes or his queer sayings when he was a child. Such
stories, I think, are usually tedious, but George was a peculiar boy."

Mr. Perry's search for notorieties took him also to Scotland, and,
oddly enough, Prince Wolfburgh's