The prizes that were dangled varied between a mite and a fortune; and now, in the murky lamplight of the garret, the pianist saw visions. Rebuffed, intimidated, she had suddenly a prospect; chimerical as the prospect was, she might gain the means to buy a hearing for her art! For the woman seeking recognition, opportunity. For the woman divided from her child, a home. Every night they spoke of it. Often while the lamp burnt low, and a horse-bell jangled sadly, they laughed together in a castle-in-the-air. But those brats from the _Assistance publique_, who blindly dispensed destinies at the drawing, dipped their red hands upon the wrong numbers. "As usual! I am sorry I proposed it to you. It is an imbecility to waste one's earnings in such a fashion--one might as well toss money in the Seine. Well, I have had enough! I have finished. I am determined never to gamble any more," cried madame Branthonne, who had made the same resolve a dozen times. Marie said less. But her disappointment was black; it was only now that she knew how vivid had been her hope. And in the meanwhile her little hoard had dwindled terribly, and she was seeking other pupils. "What if you get them--you will be no nearer to renown? In Chauville you have a living waiting for you--why wear out shoe-leather to find bread in Paris? Poverty in Paris is no sweeter than poverty elsewhere." "If I go back to Chauville, it means the end," she answered. "I shall never have anything to look forward to there--never, to the day of my death. Year after year I shall sit teaching exercises and little pieces to schoolgirls who will never play. The girls will escape, and marry, but _I_ shall sit teaching the same exercises and little pieces to their children. Here, if I can hold out, if only I can hold out long enough, I may batter my way up. I want to get on--I've a right to get on. You don't suppose that no one has ever made a career who couldn't pay for it?" "No," sighed her confidante; "I don't suppose it's so bad as that--men do help one sometimes." But in her heart she felt, "You aren't the kind of woman that men do things for." And, to a stranger, even pupils at five francs an hour proved hard to find. A pianist of talent--and she couldn't earn a living in Paris, even by elementary lessons. It was one of those cases which the uninitiated call "improbable," and which are happening all the time. Yet it fell to madame Branthonne to quit Paris first. When Marie Lamande could no longer sleep at night, or slept only to see the desolation of Chauville in her dreams, the teacher of French was required to go to one of the London branches of the school. It occurred abruptly; the news and the good-bye were almost simultaneous. A new proclamation of millions to be won, aggrandised "_par arrêté ministériel_," was blazoned across the pages of the newspapers; and, on impulse, the woman who was "determined never to gamble any more" left a louis with the other, to buy a ticket for her.