“I shall never return to my old home until it is freed from that hateful debt,” he had said many times to his mother, and she, with a sigh, acquiesced. She had almost given up the hope now that Norman would ever be reconciled to his wife, he turned so impatiently from all her entreaties that he would pardon Camille, and more than once he had mystified her with the strange answer: “Mother, you see only upon the surface. It is most unfortunate for both you and me. I see that you do not understand, and yet I can never explain.” Mrs. de Vere brooded half her time over those strange words, but she could never see any reason in them. “It is very true that I do not understand his hardness of heart toward Camille. No one could,” she often said to herself, impatiently, for it seemed to her that Camille had been sufficiently punished for her thoughtless flirtation. “No one could ever make me believe that there was any guilt in it. Camille was a pure woman,” she had said more than once to her son, but he always answered firmly: “I will not argue the point with you, mother.” If she persisted he always left the room. He did not know how often she was spurred on to fresh effort by the frequent letters she received from her banished daughter-in-law--letters whose passionate, piteous appeals brought tears into her kind eyes. She forgot Camille’s faults, her caprices, her jealousies, her arrogance of wealth, her thirst for admiration, in pity for her genuine despair at the separation from her husband. At first she begged Norman to read these letters. She thought they must surely soften his heart. He refused her request. He expressed a stern displeasure at the correspondence. “If you persist in keeping up communication with that wicked woman, be good enough not to force the fact upon my notice, mother,” he said, bitterly. Camille stayed abroad three years with Finette, but to the amazement of the wily maid, her plot did not succeed. The indignant boy-husband did not relent, Camille remained unforgiven. “There must be more than she confessed to me, or that foolish boy would have made it up with her long ago. I will watch closely. She has deceived me; she has not told me the whole truth,” she decided; but her keenest scrutiny, her most artful speeches, failed to make her acquainted with more than she knew already. Camille faithfully kept up the rôle of the true wife and wronged woman. CHAPTER XXIX. “I can not bear this any longer! I shall die if I do not see my husband soon! I am going back to America!” Camille cried, passionately, at last. Finette encouraged her in the resolve. She began to feel alarmed for her mistress. She could not understand how Norman held out so long. “He loved her so well. I can not make it out why he is so stubborn,” she thought, wonderingly. “Perhaps dere is some oder woman in the case. Boys are feeckle always, and what is it dat the American poet say: “‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will.’”