In this latter such was his success that losers made complaint, unjust but effectual, to the king, so that Law was obliged to leave Paris for a time.  He had dwelt long enough in Paris, this double-natured man, this student and creator, this gambler and gallant, to win the friendship of Philippe of Orleans, later to be regent of France; and gay enough had been the life they two had led—­so gay, so intimate, that Philippe gave promise that, should he ever hold in his own hands the Government of France, he would end Law’s banishment and give to him the opportunity he sought, of proving those theories of finance which constituted the absorbing ambition of his life.

Meantime Law, ever restless, had passed from one capital of Europe to another, dragging with him from hotel to hotel the young child whose life had been cast in such feverish and unnatural surroundings.  He continued to challenge every hazard, fearless, reckless, contemptuous, and withal wretched, as one must be who, after years of effort, found that he could not banish from his mind the pictures of a dark-floored prison, and of a knife-stab in the dark, and of raging, awful waters, and of a girl beautiful, though with sealed lips and heart of ice.  From time to time, as was well known, Law returned to England.  He heard of the Lady Catharine Knollys, as might easily be done in London; heard of her as a young woman kind of heart, soft of speech, with tenderness for every little suffering thing; a beautiful young woman, whose admirers listed scores; but who never yet, even according to the eagerest gossip of the capital, had found a suitor to whom she gave word or thought of love.

So now at last the arrogant selfishness of his heart began to yield.  His heart was broken before it might soften, but soften at last it did.  And so he built up in his soul the image of a grave, sweet saint, kindly and gentle-voiced, unapproachable, not to be profaned.  To this image—­ah, which of us has not had such a shrine!—­he brought in secret the homage of his life, his confessions, his despairs, his hopes, his resolutions; guiding thereby all his life, as well as poor mortal man may do, failing ever of his own standards, as all men do, yet harking ever back to that secret sibyl, reckoning all things from her, for her, by her.

There came at length one chastened hour when they met in calmness, when there was no longer talk of love between them, when he stood before her as though indeed at the altar of some marble deity.  Always her answer had been that the past had been a mistake; that she had professed to love a man, not knowing what that man was; that she had suffered, but that it was better so, since it had brought understanding.  Now, in this calmer time, she begged of him knowledge of this child, regretting the wandering life which had been its portion, saying that for Mary Connynge she no longer felt horror and hatred.  Thus it was that in a hasty moment Law had impulsively begged her to assume some sort of tutelage over that unfortunate child.  It was to his own amazement that he heard Lady Catharine Knollys consent, stipulating that the child should be placed in a Paris convent for two years, and that for two years John Law should see neither his daughter nor herself.  Obedient as a child himself he had promised.