“You forget!” said he gently, with a view to calming her agitation. “I know nothing. I have had only your telegram, and that was so vague.” “Ah! You shall see another telegram then. That,” thrusting Mme. de Vigny’s into his hand, “_that_ is not vague at all events.” Jacynth read it carefully. He frowned. “That woman again!” he said. “Yes. Again.” She stood back from him. “Do you believe he has gone back to her? _Do_ you? Do you?” The very vehemence of her question conveyed to him the knowledge that she thought he had gone back. “There is only this,” said he, striking the paper. “And it is from _her_. She is not the woman to believe in.” “No! But I have thought it out for all that, and----” She paused and pressed her hands to her head. Jacynth gently led her to a seat. She looked exhausted. “He left me,” said she presently--“to find my child and bring him to me. He came back, and there was no child with him. I was ill then--very ill. I could not think, but for all that, I _knew_. Then he went away again, and I waited--waited. Great Heaven!” said she, clasping her hands, “if you only knew what it was to wait like that for a sight of your child! and then there came--_that_!” She pointed to the telegram that he still held. “Well, what do you think?” asked she in a low voice, bending forward. “It is hard to think----” “No, it is not!” He was horrified by the change in her tone, and looked at her. She was still bending forward, her hands clasped, her young, sweet face as hard as misery could make it. “It is the easiest thing,” she said. “He met her again, I suppose--I think, and together they have gone away, taking my child with them. Oh!” She sprang to her feet, and flung out her arms. “Oh! the child! He might have gone--gone forever. It would be hard, for I loved him; but to take the child from me! The child! My darling! My baby! Do you know how many months I have lived without my little sweetheart? You, you of all men know!” She turned to him, and caught him by the arm. “Ever since that awful trial! I gave him up then, my little one; and for what?” she almost hissed out the words--“_to shield his father!_” “You mean----” said Jacynth, his heart beating; was he now to hear the truth from her own lips? But the sound of his voice broke in upon her passion, and checked her. “Nothing,” said she quickly, “except that--that he is false to me.” “I tell you again not to dwell too much on that,” said Jacynth slowly. Although his whole life seemed to depend upon it, he could not refrain from pleading his rival’s cause. “You have only that woman’s word for it. This telegram may be a fabrication from beginning to end.” “A curiously well-timed one,” she laughed, in a cruelly miserable way. “If she knew nothing of him, how did she learn that my child and my husband were now away from me?” “More curious things have been explained,” said he.