"Mother!" Floyd Grandon is really shocked. His mother is nervous and ill at ease. All night she has been brooding over what she saw in the carriage. Floyd will follow madame to Newport in a week or two, and the matter will be settled. She has no objection to her as a daughter-in-law if Floyd _must_ marry, but it is bitterly hard to be dethroned, to have nothing, to live on sufferance. He turns away, remembering what he ought to tell her, and yet, how can he? After to-morrow, when Madame Lepelletier has really gone,--and yet has he any true right to freedom as long as that? He ought to marry Violet this very day. Since he has resolved, why not make the resolution an absolute pleasure to the dying man? Grandon feels the position keenly. Never by word or look has he led madame to expect any warmer feeling than friendship; indeed, until last night he had not supposed any other state possible. He could not imagine himself a part of her fashionable life, and he had not the vanity to suppose she cared for him, but now he cannot shut his eyes. There is something in her tone, in her mien, as she comes to greet him, that brings the tint of embarrassment to his cheek. He ought to tell her that he belongs to another, but he cannot drag his sad-eyed Violet out for her inspection. "Mr. St. Vincent?" she questions, delicately. "He can hardly live through another night. There was a great deal of business to do this morning, and it has exhausted him completely. It is so unfortunate,--his having so few friends here." "What is to become of his poor child?" "He has been making arrangements for her. I wish he could have lived a month longer, then we would have been quite sure of the success or failure of his patent." Floyd says this in a grave, measured tone. "There _is_ always a convent," says madame, with a sweet, serious smile. "I believe in this country, or at least among Protestants, there is no such refuge for young or old in times of trouble." He does not wish to pursue the subject. "I am so sorry Eugene is not at home. You go to-morrow?" There is not the slightest inhospitable inflection to this, but if he had said, "Why do you go?" or "You had better wait," her heart would have throbbed with pleasure. One could announce a delay so easily by telegram. "I meant to see you started on your journey," he begins, and there is a curious something in his tone. "Briggs had better go and see to your luggage, and if you will accept my mother's company----" "You cannot go?" There is a soft pleading, a regret that touches him, and makes him feel that he is playing false, and yet he surely is not. There is no reason why he should tell her of the coming step when he has hardly decided himself. "No," he answers, briefly. "I ought not leave St. Vincent an hour. My impression is that he will die at midnight or dawn. I have no one to whom I can depute any of the arrangements."