“All that can be easily arranged. Our late visitor, Mrs. Brander, sails in two days for Europe to join her married son in Paris, and she will be only too glad to have my company on the trip. For the rest, I can sell some of my jewels for the passage money. I shall have plenty more as soon as I am married.” “It is all very easy as you have planned it, and I don’t doubt you will succeed with such an indomitable will as you are now displaying,” commended Mrs. Montague. “We must begin to get you ready to start in the morning to join Mrs. Brander,” she went on. “I suppose you had better break the news to our remaining guests, at once, that Senator Bonair has cabled for you to come to Paris. I hope they will all take their departures quickly, as under the circumstances they ought to do.” The guests were all of the same mind with her, and after hearing the sad news and offering formal condolences suited to the occasion, did some hasty packing and were all out of the house by nightfall, the last one to leave being Adrian Vance, who said, as he pressed her hand at parting: “I shall lodge in the town to-night and bear you company to New York on the morning train. Indeed I am not sure but I shall follow you to Paris on the same steamer.” “Oh, indeed, you must not! I shall not permit it,” she replied, with a glance that belied her word, and silently invited him to disobey her mandate. As a result he kept his word, and as soon as the steamer left her moorings he joined Rosalind and her chaperon as their traveling companion. CHAPTER XXXVI. TRUE TO HIS WORD. It was true that Lucile and Marie, who, with their husbands, were now in Paris, had hardened their hearts absolutely against their brother and his lowly born bride. They had joined their father at his hotel, but after they had heard the whole story of Berenice’s care and devotion that had saved his life, they were rebellious; they could not forgive. The sisters remembered how beautiful and charming Berenice had been that one night upon the stage at Bonair, but the thought of that beauty only hardened their hearts, since it was this that had made their brother a traitor to Rosalind. “Papa, we cannot look at it as you do; the cases are different,” they said to their father. “And if you want our advice it would be to give them a large sum of money rather than try to secure social recognition for them that would result in many unpleasant complications.” “I did not think you could be so cruel to your only brother who loved you so well,” their father said rebukingly. “He put that low-born actress before us and Rosalind in his heart,” was the answer. “Rosalind, always Rosalind! I am sick of the very name! Do you owe no duty to others?” he cried angrily, and they started with surprise. “Rosalind is to be your wife and our stepmother--we should consider her first,” they replied stubbornly.