"But you are glad to be back at Brestalou again? and you _will_ remain here with us--always?" queried Crystal, and with tender eagerness she clasped the older woman's hands closely in her own. "Yes, dear," replied Madame gently. "I am glad to be back in the old château--my dear old home--where I was very happy and very young once--oh, so very long ago! And I will remain with your father and look after him all the time that his young bird is absent from the nest." Again she stroked her niece's soft, wavy hair with a gesture which apparently was habitual with her, and it seemed as if a note of sadness had crept into her brisk, sharp voice. Over Crystal's cheeks a wave of crimson had quickly swept at her aunt's last words: and the eyes which she now raised to Madame's kindly face were full of tears. "It seems so terribly soon now, _ma tante_," she said wistfully. "Hm, yes!" quoth Mme. la Duchesse drily, "time has a knack now and then of flying faster than we wish. Well, my dear, so long as this day brings you happiness, the old folk who stay at home have no right to grumble." Then as Crystal made no reply and held her little head resolutely away, Madame said more insistently: "You are happy, Crystal, are you not?" "Of course I am happy, _ma tante_," replied Crystal quickly, "why should you ask?" But still she would not look straight into Madame's eyes, and the tone of Madame's voice sounded anything but satisfied. "Well!" she said, "I ask, I suppose, because I want an answer . . . a satisfactory answer." "You have had it, _ma tante_, have you not?" "Yes, my dear. If you are happy, I am satisfied. But last night it seemed to me as if your ideas of your own happiness and those of your father on the same subject were somewhat at variance, eh?" "Oh no, _ma tante_," rejoined Crystal quietly, "father and I are quite of one mind on that subject." "But your heart is pulling a different way, is that it?" Then as Crystal once more relapsed into silence and two hot tears dropped on the Duchesse's wrinkled hands, the old woman added softly: "St. Genis, who hasn't a sou, was out of the question, I suppose." Crystal shook her head in silence. "And that young de Marmont is very rich?" "He is his uncle's heir," murmured Crystal. "And you, child, are marrying a kinsman of that abominable Duc de Raguse in order to regild our family escutcheon." "My father wished it so very earnestly," rejoined Crystal, who was bravely swallowing her tears, "and I could not bear to run counter to his desire. The Duc de Raguse has promised father that when I am a de Marmont he will buy back all the forfeited Cambray estates and restore them to us: Victor will be allowed to take up the name of Cambray and . . . and . . . Oh!" she exclaimed passionately, "father has had such a hard life, so much sorrow, so many disappointments, and now this poverty is so horribly grinding. . . . I couldn't have the heart to disappoint him in this!"