lone.'

'Why not?' she asked, with a flash of rage. 'Why am I incapable of
taking care of myself?'

'You are not strong or well,' said Paul. 'You are not quite mistress of
your own emotions.'

'Ah!' she cried, 'now we are to have the accusation. I am going mad! Is
that it? You would like to get rid of me on that ground? Do I understand
at last?'

Paul would have been blind if he had failed to see that beneath the air
of scorn she strove to wear there was some real terror in her mind, and
he did his best to soothe it.

'All these things are the merest fancies,' he began.

'Oh yes,' she broke in. 'Delusions! That is step number one. We suffer
from delusions.'

'If you believe in anything of the sort that you suggest, you are
mistaken. If you wish to be happy, you must banish all that nonsense
from your mind. It _is_ pure nonsense, dearest. Why should Laurent try
to poison my mind? He likes you very well. He takes a warm interest
in you, to the best of my belief. But you are really very fanciful and
strange to-day, and you have been giving yourself up far too much to
solitude for two months past. It is your duty to yourself and me to
accept Laurent's advice. You must not be left here alone. You may choose
your own companion. She shall be entirely at your orders. You shall
engage her yourself; you shall pay her salary; she shall be at your own
control.'

'I know,' she answered, tapping her foot upon the floor. 'I know. The
truth is, you never really cared for me, and now you have grown tired.
You want to be rid of me.'

'Now, that,' said Paul, 'is not only nonsense, it is very wicked
nonsense, and I will not permit it The whole matter lies with yourself.
If you continue to nurse those wrong and foolish thoughts, you will make
it necessary for me to insist upon your obedience. If you will behave
like a sensible creature, I may feel justified in yielding to your
wish, and leaving you behind. But if I have any more of these absurd
suspicions I shall not venture to leave you here.'

He spoke with a purposed sternness, but with something of a heartache,
too. There was no escape in his own mind from the belief that the whole
change which had of late revealed itself in Annette was due to the
fact of approaching maternity, and he had a man's natural pity for her
sufferings. He bore her fancies with patience, but he thought it best
for her that he should feign some anger at them.

The plan seemed to act for the time b