After dinner her mother left her in the small reception-room, a rich and ornate apartment, furnished in an oriental manner with divans, cushions, and Moorish hangings. The zeal for chaperonage had not yet penetrated to the West, and Bessie considered that to leave her daughter thus alone was to discharge her duties as a parent with delicate correctness. She retired to the adjoining library, where the count, on entering, had a glimpse of her sitting in a low chair, languidly turning the pages of a magazine. He, on his part, had lived in the West long enough to know that the disposal of the family in these segregated units was what custom and conventionality dictated. The count was a clever man and had studied the United States from other points of vantage than the window of a Pullman car. With the murmur of his greetings to Maud in her ears, Bessie rose from her chair. She found the library chill and cheerless after her cozy boudoir on the floor above, and decided to go there. Glancing over her shoulder, as she mounted the stairs, she could see the count standing with his back to the fire, discoursing with a smile--a handsome, personable man, with his dark face and pointed beard looking darker than ever over his gleaming expanse of shirt bosom. It would be an entirely desirable marriage for Maud. Bessie had found out all about the count’s position and title in his native land, and both were all that he said they were, which had satisfied and surprised her. In her own room she sat down before the fire to think. Maud’s future was in her own hands now, molding itself into shape downstairs in the reception-room. Bessie could do no more toward directing it than she had already done, and her active mind immediately seized on the other subject that had been engrossing it. She drew out Mrs. Willers’ letter and read it again. Then crumpling it in her hand, she looked into the fire with eyes of somber perplexity. What was the matter with the girl? Mrs. Willers stated positively that, as far as she could ascertain, there was no man that had the slightest influence over Mariposa Moreau’s affections. She was acting entirely on her own volition. But what had made her change her mind, Mrs. Willers did not know. Something had undoubtedly occurred, she thought, that had influenced Mariposa to a total reversal of opinion. Mrs. Willers said she could not imagine what this was, but it had changed the girl, not only in ambition and point of view, but in character. The letter frightened Bessie. It had made her silent all through dinner, and now brooding over the fire, she thought of what it might mean and felt a cold apprehension seize her. Could Mariposa know? Her behavior and conduct since Shackleton’s death suggested such a possibility. It was incredible to think of, but Lucy might have told. And also, might not the girl, in arranging her mother’s effects after her death, have come on something, letters or papers, which had revealed the past?