A memory rose up in Bessie’s mind of the girl wife she had supplanted, clinging to the marriage certificate, which was all that remained to remind her of the days when she had been the one lawful wife. Bessie knew that this paper had been carefully tied in the bundle which held Lucy’s few possessions when they left Salt Lake. She knew it was still in the bundle when she, herself, had handed it to the deserted girl in front of Moreau’s cabin. Might not Mariposa have found it? She rose and walked about the room, feeling sick at the thought. She was no longer young, and her iron nerve had been permanently shaken by the suddenness of her husband’s death. Mariposa, with her mother’s marriage certificate, might be plotting some desperate _coup_. No wonder she refused to go to Paris! If she could establish her claim as Shackleton’s eldest and only legitimate child, she would not only sweep from Win and Maud the lion’s share of their inheritance, but, equally unbearable, she would drag to the light the ugly story--the terrible story that Jake Shackleton and his second wife had so successfully hidden. Her thoughts were suddenly broken in on by the bang of the front door. She looked at the clock and saw it was only nine. If it was the count who was going he had stayed less than an hour. What had happened? She moved to the door and listened. She heard a light step, slowly and furtively mounting the stairs. It was Maud, for, though she could attempt to deaden her footfall, she could not hush the rustling of her silken skirts. As the sweeping sound reached the stair-head, Bessie opened her door. Maud stopped short, her black dress fading into the darkness about her, so that her white face seemed to be floating unattached through the air like an optical delusion. “Why, mommer,” she said, falteringly, “I thought you were in bed.” “Has the count gone?” queried her mother, with an unusual sternness of tone. “Yes,” said the girl, “he’s gone. He--he--went early to-night.” “Why did he go so early?” “He didn’t want to stay any longer.” Maud was terrified. Her hand clutching the balustrade was trembling and icy. In her father’s lifetime she had known that she would never dare to tell of her engagement to Latimer. She would have ended by eloping. Now, the fear of her mother, who had always been the gentler parent, froze her timid soul, and even the joy of her love seemed swamped in this dreadful moment of confession. “Did the count ask you to marry him?” said Bessie. “Yes! and--” with tremulous desperation, “I said no, I couldn’t.” “You said no! that’s not possible. You couldn’t be such a fool.” “Well, I was, and I said it.” “Come in here, Maud,” said her mother, standing back from the doorway; “we can’t talk sensibly this way.” But Maud did not move. “No, I don’t want to go in there,” she said, like a naughty child; “there’s nothing to talk about. I don’t want to marry him and I told him so and he’s gone, and that’s the end of it.”