"I looked upon you," she said, "as one whom I had trained up. Since I have lost my little Jules I have needed something to care for. I taught you to speak my language as if you were a baby. You learned the coinage of the land, and how to walk through the city, and all customs and places, precisely as a child learns them from his mother. Alas! you were wiser than I, and it made me sad to feel it. It was like the mother's regret that her boy is getting above her, in mind, in stature, so that he shall be able to do without her. Yet with that fear there is a pride like mine, when I felt that you were clever. Ah! Ralph, you loved to make me feel how weak and mean I was. You played with my poor heart, sick enough before, and little by little I felt your love gliding away from me, till at last you told me that it was gone. You said you should leave France, never to return--God forgive you if it was not true!--and when you treated me worst, I was tempted to hear kind words from another. Fanchette's friend has a rich cousin who admires me. He is to live in Paris many years. I never loved him, but I am poor, and many women marry only for a home. He offered that and more to me. I would not hear it. Oh! if you had only said one tender word to me in those days of temptation. I begged you for it. When I was humblest at your feet you put your heel upon me most. "One night when I had the greatest trouble of all he sat beside me and plied his suit, and was pleasanter, my boy, than you have ever been; and then, rising, he placed that box of jewelry in my lap and ran away. I left it upon Fanchette's mantel that night. She filled my head with false thoughts next day. I never meant while you were in Paris to do you any wrong; but I put those jewels in my pocket, meaning to give them up again; you found them, and I was made wretched." Ralph made that dry, biting cough which he used to express unbelief. She only bent her head and wept silently. "When all was gone, poor me! I have found much sorrow in my little life, but we are light-hearted in France, and we live and laugh again. Perhaps you have made me more like one of your countrywomen. I do not know--only that I can never be happy any more. "Since we have dwelt apart my tempter has been to see me every day. He has grand chambers which he will give me, and rich wardrobes, and a watch, and a voiture. It is a dazzling picture for one who toils, going all her days on foot, and lovely only to be deceived. But I hate that man now, because he has come between you and me, and I have slept upon my tears alone."