is Jean then, Marie-Louise, who
has brought you to Paris?"

"Yes," she answered, in a low voice.

The cure's face grew very grave.

"You have heard from him?"

She shook her head.

"I have never heard from Jean since the day he left
Bernay-sur-Mer"--she was plucking with her fingers at the skirt of the
priest's _soutane_.

There was a long silence, broken at last by the old priest's deep sigh.

"You still love Jean, my child?" he asked gently.

"I have always loved him," she said simply.

Father Anton fumbled with his spectacles. His heart had grown very
heavy. It seemed that the cruelest, saddest thing in the world had
happened.

"Tell me about him!" she demanded eagerly. "You see him every day,
father."

"I have not seen Jean in many months," he replied sadly.

"Not seen him!" she echoed in consternation. "But he is here--in
Paris--isn't he?"

"Yes; he is here," the cure said slowly. "But Paris is a big place,
and--and even old friends sometimes do not meet often."

"But tell me about him!" she persisted. "He has become a great man--a
very great, great man?"

"Yes," said Father Anton gravely, "he has become a great man--the
greatest perhaps in all of France." Then suddenly, laying his hands on
Marie-Louise's shoulders: "Marie-Louise, what is in your heart? Why
have you come here?"

"But I have told you, and you know," she said. "To see Jean."

The cure's hands tightened upon her shoulders. What was he to say to
her? How was he to tell her of the danger she in her innocence would
never guess, that lay so cold and ominous a thing upon his own heart?
How was he to put into words his fear of Jean for this pure soul that
was at his knees? As wide as the world was the distance that lay now
between Marie-Louise and Jean--but it was not that, not even that Jean
was openly attentive to Myrna Bliss--that was only a little thing.
Jean was not the Jean of Bernay-sur-Mer. The man was glutted now with
power and wealth. And swaying him was not the love of art that might
have lifted him to a loftier plane, it was the prostitution of that
divine, God-given genius for the lust of fame. And for fame he had
exchanged his soul. What was there sacred to Jean now? It was a life
closely approximating that of a roue that Jean lived. And for
Marie-Louise, with her love a weapon that might so easily be turned
against her, to come in touch with--no, no; it was not to be thought of!

"Marie-Louise," he s