"No! If I remain I cannot answer for myself. I am ashamed to confess it, but--listen, Maman--but put your arms around me first; he is not worthy, I know it; yet I love him! He vows love to me, yet he is betrothed; I know that, _also_; but I have no reason left, and my folly will make me go to him if you do not help me. Listen, Maman! I--I will do all you say. I will marry in a year--two years--when this is all over. I will obey you in everything, if you will only take me away. I cannot leave you; yet I am afraid to stay where he is." "Afraid! But, Judithe, my child, no one shall intrude upon you. Your friends will protect you from such a man. You have only to refuse to see him, and in a little while--" "Refuse! Maman, what can I say to make you understand that I could never refuse him again? Yet, oh, the humiliation! Maman, he is the man I despised--the man I said was not fit to be spoken to; it was all true, but when I hear his voice it makes me forget his unworthiness. Listen, Maman! I--I confessed to him today that I loved him; yet I know he is the man who by the laws of America is the owner of Rhoda Larue, and he is now the betrothed of her half-sister; I heard the name of his fiancee today, and it told me the whole story. He is the man! _Now_, will you take me away?" The next morning the dowager, Marquise de Caron, left her Paris home for the summer season. Her destination was indefinitely mentioned as Switzerland. Her daughter-in-law accompanied her. And to Kenneth McVeigh, waiting impatiently the hour when he might go to her, a note was given: "Monsieur: "My words of yesterday had no meaning. I was frightened and irresponsible. When you read this I will have left Paris. By not meeting again we will avoid further mistakes of the same nature. "This is my last word to you. "JUDITHE CARON." For two weeks he tried in vain to find her. Then he was recalled to Paris to meet his mother, who was ready for home. She was shocked at his appearance, and refused to believe that he had not been ill during her absence, and had some motherly fears regarding Parisian dissipations, from which she decided to remove him, if possible. He acknowledged he would be glad to go--he was sick of Europe any way. The last day he took a train for Fontainbleau, remained two hours under the beeches, alone, and got back to Paris in time to make the train for Havre. After they had got comfortably established on a homeward-bound vessel, and he was watching the land line grow fainter over the waters, Mrs. McVeigh came to him with a bit of news read from the last journal brought aboard. The dowager, Marquise de Caron, had established herself at Geneva for the season, accompanied by her daughter, the present Marquise, whose engagement to Monsieur Loris Dumaresque had just been announced. CHAPTER X.