Finette protested that she did not know where her mistress had deposited the gems for safe-keeping. She wept because she did not have money enough to carry her home to her beloved Paris, and Norman handed her the requisite amount, and gave her possession of all the dead woman’s effects. He went away then with a heavy heart, hoping he had seen the last of the French woman, whom he had always despised in secret. Mrs. de Vere grieved very sincerely for poor Camille, as she called her in her thoughts. She thought that Norman had been unnecessarily hard with his wife, and that he must of necessity suffer the pangs of remorse over her tragic death. But she was too wise to utter such thoughts aloud. Camille’s name was never uttered between them any more after the rainy day when they stood side by side and saw the clods falling on the new-made grave in Greenwood, where the dead woman had been laid to rest. That her memory saddened them for many days after was evident by the pale, grave faces they wore so long, but to either heart had come an unowned sense of relief that the restless, unhappy creature was dead. CHAPTER XXXI. Camille had been dead more than two years now, and the shock of her death had worn off some from the minds of Norman de Vere and his devoted mother. They had gone back to Verelands and settled down to a quiet, passively contented life, he with his books and writing, she with her birds and flowers and the old associations that were so dear to her tender heart. In their troubles they had almost forgotten Little Sweetheart, the child they had given into George Hinton’s care. Mrs. de Vere sent annually out of her slender income the requisite sum for the girl’s maintenance and education, and there always came back a letter of thanks from him, giving an account of his stewardship. They knew that the girl was well and happy, and in the last letter they received they learned that she had graduated with the honors of her class, and was at home now for good. Mrs. de Vere said timidly then that it would be pleasant to have a daughter to brighten up the quiet old house, but her son had answered, gravely: “We do quite well as we are, mother.” She knew then that she must strangle the faint yearning she felt for the child she had been so fond of long ago. Norman had forgotten, perhaps, how he had coveted her for a little sister. He had changed so much in these thirteen years that he was not much like the ardent, impulsive boy who had married the mature woman, and then repented his folly at such bitter cost. Kind and gentle as ever to his adoring mother, he seemed to have hardened to the rest of the world. He shut himself up long hours each day in the library, evolving from his busy brain the clever novels that brought in such solid returns in the shape of useless gold--useless because it brought no happiness to the stern, grave man, who found in ceaseless labor the only antidote for wearying retrospections.