Her husband paid no attention to her complaint. He had fallen on one knee before his mother. He lifted her soft, white hand to his lips. “Mother, I have deeply wronged you. Forgive me!” he exclaimed. “My son,” she faltered. “I am ashamed to confess it; but perhaps you have suspected--I feared--nay, believed--that you, out of sympathy with Camille, had hidden Little Sweetheart away from me.” Yes, she had suspected--had guessed his thought--had grieved in silence over his proud coldness to her, his mother. She could not answer now save by a low, pained sob. Still on his knees before the gentle mother he had wronged, he turned his face toward Camille. “I was base enough to confide my suspicions to you,” he said, bitterly. “You, Camille, fostered and encouraged them. To save yourself you turned traitor to her who was your mother’s dearest friend, and who for that at least should have been sacred from your treachery. What have you to say for yourself?” “That I am no worse than you. You first suggested it to me. It--it seemed plausible!” Camille replied, with a defiant face. A low groan broke from him, and he gazed at her for a moment in steady scorn; then he turned back to the agitated elderly woman. “Mother, I wronged you,” he said again, in a voice of deep contrition. “Can you forgive me?” “Freely, Norman,” she replied, tenderly. “If this was all you wanted, it might have waited until to-morrow. Unlock that door; I am going,” Camille said, sharply, eager to escape, for she began to fear that his suspicions were now directed against herself. He did not obey her haughty command, but rising, stood looking at her, his arms folded over his breast, a gleam of fierce anger in his eyes. “You will wait a moment,” he said. “I have news for you. The missing child is found.” “Really!” she sneered; but an icy shudder shook her from head to foot, and a silent malediction against Finette’s bungling trembled on her lips. “Yes, she is found, Camille,” he said. “And, oh, Camille, Camille, imagine my feelings when I found that you had deceived me--that you were the guilty party!” “How dare you accuse me?” she stormed, springing to her feet, wrathfully beautiful, determined to brave it out to the end; but he answered her with that smile that was half sorrow, half scorn: “Denials are useless. You worked through Finette, your diabolical French maid. She took the child from my mother’s arms while she slept. She went on horseback with her captive to one of the worst quarters of Jacksonville, where she gave her to a miserable, brutal old rag-picker, who has half starved that innocent little angel, beaten her till she is covered with stripes, and forced her to stand in the streets and beg for her food! Oh, my wife! how little I dreamed that you could be capable of such cruelty!”