social station. My sole companion
was the old dame who took care of the house--the one person in the world
of whom my father seemed to have fear. So the miserable years dragged by.
When I had just begun to make some plans by which I might escape from
this dungeon they so falsely called my home--just at the time I was most
despairing--like a joyful, radiant rift of sunlight in a clouded sky,
came--my Jeanette. Oh, if you could but see her!"

Under cover of the dark the girls' hands sought and clasped convulsively,
but no one spoke.

"I cannot attempt to describe one so gay, so beautiful, so lovely. She
seemed like a spirit from another world--a far dearer, happier world than
I had ever thought to exist. Ah, how I loved her, and she--ah, she loved
me, and for a while we were, oh, Monsieur, so divinely, so unthinkably
happy----" His voice broke and again his gaze wandered dreamily out into
the night.

"And who was the girl?" Lucile prompted, eagerly.

"Ah, Mademoiselle, that was the rock upon which all our dreams were
wrecked. My father would but reply sourly to any question I might venture
that my fair Jeanette was the ward of a friend who, on his death-bed, had
bequeathed her to his clemency--the fool!"

"As for my Jeanette herself, she told me all she knew about herself,
which, in fact, was little enough. She had lived with her guardian and
his faithful old servant for ever since she could remember, and had been
very happy. The chateau where she lived was a pretty, open place, with
gardens all about and beautiful woods on either side, where one could
roam for hours, becoming acquainted with the little folk of the
wood--this my little Jeanette did, not feeling the need of human
companionship as had I. When, upon rare occasions, she had questioned her
guardian as to the identity of her parents, he had answered with a most
strange reticence that she must not bother her head about such matters,
but to wait till she was twenty-one, when she would know all. Naturally,
the child believed and did as she was bid, but the maiden wondered and
began to brood in secret. In time she began to form great plans wherein
she might discover her identity, and perhaps, who knows, she might find
herself to be a duke's daughter--such things happened with the utmost
frequency in the books which she read.

"So spoke my little Jeanette, and I encouraged her in this fancy and
became, if anything, more eager than herself to solve the mystery