The girl flushed. "Certainly not, Mother. That would not have been quite fair, when you had promised to make good any loss that came to Jacqueline and me through your marriage. I think," she said, "that you may always count upon me to be quite fair." Kate nodded, wearily. It was true, Jemima was always fair.--She thought, "This was the baby Jacques loved"--who had clung to him as she never clung to her own father, who had listened as eagerly as she herself listened for the pit-a-patter of his racking horse, who had refused to be consoled when he passed without stopping. This was the baby, this stern, hard-eyed young girl, who had been their constant companion in the days of their unspoken love, equally dear to both of them, lavishing upon both her impartial ardors. Does memory only commence with thought, then? Do the loves through which we pass from cradle to grave disappear without leaving even a tenderness to show where they have been? Jemima's throat contracted with hate at the very mention of Jacques' name. Had she learned so suddenly, perhaps, to hate her mother, too? Nothing more was said of the girl's leaving home. She remained in her mother's house, but without capitulation. It was "her mother's house" now, no longer home. She was one of those proud, not ignoble natures whose affection is entirely dependent upon respect. Her mother had been the great figure in her rather narrow life, object of a silent, critical, undemonstrative affection which was the furthest possible remove from Jacqueline's or Kate's own idea of love, but which in its way amounted to hero-worship. When Kate with her own lips destroyed her daughter's faith in her, she had unwittingly destroyed an idol. The moral lapse to which she admitted was as incomprehensible to this cool and level-headed observer of nineteen as actual sin. She realized that her mother had been unfaithful to her father--whether literally or spiritually did not matter--and that instead of repenting she was prepared to augment her unfaithfulness by putting in her husband's place the man who had killed him. These were the facts that stood out before her in all their naked horror, and it was impossible for her temperament to find either palliation or excuse. The tragedy of the discovery left its mark upon young Jemima. Her lips retained permanently a certain cold fixity, that reminded more than one person who remembered him of Basil Kildare, and it was significant that she was never called again by her old pet-name of "the Apple-Blossom."