Days passed, and no matter how angry it made the young girls at the hotel, no one could deny that Lord Stuart admired the married coquette more than any of the others. He was always to be found in Camille’s train. He danced with her at the balls; he was only too proud to carry her fan and her bouquet. If she had been free, she might have become Lady Stuart at any time, said the gossips. It was no wonder that every one was indignant with the red-haired siren, for every single woman at the hotel had had hopes of his lordship. It was a shame for them to be disappointed for the sake of a married woman who had made a conquest of him simply to gratify her own vanity. Her dear five hundred friends said hard things about her behind her back--spiteful things that when they came to the ears of Norman de Vere made him grind his white teeth in fury. He had watched Camille’s course with bitter disapproval all these weeks, but when he remonstrated with her, she flung her white arms about him, vowing that she loved him only, that she was but amusing herself with my lord to show those spiteful women her power. “They are only angry because I have rivaled them, that is all,” she said, caressing him fondly, for she began to think that she had punished him enough. He had suffered, and she knew it. Her wayward heart had been touched by the look she had sometimes seen in his eyes. She began to relent--to feel ashamed of herself. “Camille, will you not come home now? The child is almost over the fever. I do not think there can be any fear of infection now,” he said, pleadingly. She started and frowned. Her white arms fell from his neck. “I thought you told me the child would die!” she cried, sharply. “We feared so. The doctor had but little hope during those days when Sweetheart lay in that deep stupor without taking food for so long. But thanks to my mother’s excellent nursing, she survived the terrible disease, and is now on the way to recovery.” The frown on the beautiful face, half turned away from him, grew dark and deep. There was murder in Camille’s heart. “Oh, God! how I hate the little wretch!” she thought, feverishly; and turning to him, she asked: “Have you never had any answer to the advertisements you sent to the papers?” “None,” he replied. “And so it is quite settled that I am to be taxed with the little foundling’s support!” she exclaimed, malevolently. A deep-red flush came to the young man’s handsome face. “No, Camille; the expense of the child’s maintenance will fall upon my mother, who has a small income of her own, you know. It is her wish.” “She is very foolish,” Camille said, bitterly. Then she paused abruptly. She remembered that she had to keep up some pretense of kindness toward the child, else Norman would discredit Finette’s clever story by which she had saved her mistress. She put on her sweetest smile, and promised that she would go back to Verelands as soon as he wished.