The close of the war had left her an impoverished widow with an only son, and it had taxed her shallow resources to provide means for him to have an education such as befitted a De Vere who had some of the best blood of France as well as of the South in his veins. But she sent him to college, and it was on a visit home at Christmas that she took him to call on a lady who was wintering in Jacksonville--a Miss Acton--the daughter of an old friend of hers. Miss Acton was an orphan, and had inherited a million of dollars from her California father and a beautiful face from her mother. She was alone in Florida, except for her fashionable friends and her French maid. She told Mrs. de Vere, who had sought her out for her mother’s sake, that she was unmarried still, because she could put no faith in the disinterested love of any man. Mrs. de Vere took her son with her when he came home at Christmas to call on the distrustful heiress. He was young and impressionable, and Camille Acton did not look twenty-five. Her beauty, her style, her Parisian costume, all combined made so strong an impression that he fell ardently in love, and as he had the beauty of an Adonis, it was no wonder that her fiery heart was thrilled in return. The ambitious mother saw all with astonishment and delight. She invited Miss Acton to winter at Castle Rackrent, as she often bitterly termed it, and between the two maneuvering women the fatal match was made. A European tour followed upon the brilliant wedding that took place in a few months, and they remained abroad for a year, during which time the Jacksonville home was put into perfect repair and elegantly refurnished with the bride’s money for a winter residence. In due time they came back, but not before the boy had discovered that he had wedded a beautiful Xanthippe. Camille de Vere had a jealous passion for the boy she had married that drove her into excesses of rage without reason. Added to this was a distrust of his love, a horror lest he had wedded her from a mercenary purpose alone, for with all her faults she was quite free from vanity. She hated her peculiar type of beauty, and she would not permit flattery. She believed it was addressed to the heiress, not the woman. Proud, jealous, despotic, she yet underrated her own attractions, and made herself wretched in consequence. The bitterest taunt, the one that cut most deeply into the sensitive spirit of Norman de Vere, was one that she only ventured upon in the most towering flights of rage.