Mr. Tillinghast met him soon after he left Mrs. Rochester, and told him that he knew of a couple of families who were going outside the city limits that very evening. They had secured passes through some one in high authority, and were to occupy a portion of a large villa that was almost a palace, on the banks of the Seine, about ten miles out. He believed that Dr. Winthrop might succeed in getting his family and the Rochesters passed out with them. It was an opportunity to be instantly seized upon. He sought the parties at once. They were very kind and sympathetic, and consented to take the frightened Americans in charge. Everything was arranged with comparative ease, and the next day they were all safely housed in the spacious villa, and delighted to be out of danger. When Dr. Winthrop had seen them comfortably settled, he informed his mother that he was going to return to Paris to resume his practice in the hospital or wherever he should be most needed. Madam rebelled violently against this plan. “You have no right to do it—no right to thus rashly risk your life, especially now,” she vehemently asserted with significant emphasis on the last word. “What is my life?” he demanded bitterly, with a slight quiver of his lips; “and what especial value can it have at this time?” “Can you ask,” his mother inquired, astonished, “when at last you have come to your senses?” “What do you mean?” he questioned, astonished, in his turn. “Why, that you are finally going to do the proper thing, and marry Sadie Rochester.” “Who said I was going to marry Miss Rochester? Did she tell you so?” Dr. Winthrop gravely inquired. “No; of course not. Such an announcement should come from you. But Mrs. Rochester has told me what happened in her drawing-room the other morning. She said that you might not be quite ready to formally announce it, for she could get nothing definite from Sadie; but she was confident that you were engaged.” “Mrs. Rochester is surely very good to arrange everything so comfortably for me,” Dr. Winthrop replied with a curling lip, while in his heart there arose a feeling of contempt for Miss Rochester, because she had neglected to set matters straight. No matter what her own feelings might be, she at least should have exonerated him from the suspicion of having proposed to her and been accepted. He turned abruptly and left his mother, without attempting to explain further, and returned directly to Paris. Certainly no one could have thought him very lover-like to depart without taking leave of his supposed _fiancée_. Madam spent the remainder of the day in tears; for the estrangement of her son was a great trial to her, since it proved that he had not forgiven her for the part she had taken against Salome.