"Yes, that's the worst part of it!" cried Bundy. "Your life is to be sacrificed too. With your splendid education you ought to be making a figure in the world. At all events you ought to be back upon your ranch, if that's the kind of life you mean to live. You must know that." "Yes, I know it. But I can't go back as long as father lives. I have to make amends to him for past unkindness. And, remember, he has no one left but me." "What about Helen?" said Mrs. Bundy. "That's one of the things I came over to tell you about. I have a letter from her. You had better read it." The letter was dated from Paris, and read as follows: "DEAR ARTHUR: "I hear that you are back in London, so you know all about the _mess_ father has made of his affairs. You were lucky to be out of it, for it was a dreadful disgrace. I thought I should have _died_ of shame. Just, too, when he was going to be knighted, for that's come out since, you know. He must have known all about it--I mean the disgrace--long before it came. And yet he never told me one word, but let me think things were all right, and was always talking to me about the house he meant to build, and the place in society I was to have. I can see now that it was all lies, and I will never forgive him. I suppose you will say I ought to sympathise with him, and all that kind of _rot_: you always did pretend to be so mighty good. Well, I don't, and I won't forgive him. And I dare say you'll say I ought to have stayed with him, and all that kind of thing. A pretty idea! As if I could have put my head out of doors, with everybody talking about us, and father's name in all the papers. I did go out once, and the Collinson girls, _proud, conceited things_, cut me dead, though I went to school with them. I wasn't going to stand that, so, after mother's funeral, I went away to one of my _true_ friends in Paris. I didn't tell her what had happened, you may be sure. And she doesn't read the English papers, _thank God_. Her name is Adèle Siedmyer. She went to school with me, and her father is rich. She gave me a good time, I can tell you, and not a word said. The Siedmyers live in a beautiful house, much better than that _old_ Eagle House, which I always detested. Well, now, I've something to tell you, which is quite _important_. There was a nice old gentleman who used to come to dinner at the Siedmyers', and I soon saw that he was very fond of me. They told me he was seventy, but he doesn't look more than _fifty_, for these Frenchmen know how to dress and keep young, which Englishmen never do. He told me all about his life--he'd been twice married, but his wives had treated him _abominably_--and I felt very sorry for him. I forgot to say he's something in the Stock Exchange--the Bourse, they call it here--and the Siedmyers thought no end of him. Well, I dare say you'll guess the rest. He asked me to marry him. I thought he put it so _cleverly_; he