“It was then that I first heard of you, Mr. Ritchie, and of the part which you played in that affair.  It was then I had my first real insight into Antoinette’s character.  Her affection for Mrs. Temple astonished me, bewildered me.  The woman had deceived her and her family, and yet Antoinette gave up her lover because he would not take his mother back.  Had Mrs. Temple been willing to return to Les Iles after you had providentially taken her away, they would have received her.  Philippe de St. Gre is not a man to listen to criticism.  As it was, Antoinette did not rest until she found where Mrs. Temple had hidden herself, and then she came here to her.  It is not for us to judge any of them.  In sending Antoinette away the poor lady denied herself the only consolation that was left to her.  Antoinette understood.  Every week she has had news of Mrs. Temple from Mr. Clark.  And when I came and learned her trouble, Antoinette begged me to come here and be Mrs. Temple’s friend.  Mr. Ritchie, she is a very ill woman and a very sad woman,—­the saddest woman I have ever known, and I have seen many.”

“And Mademoiselle de St. Gre?” I asked.

“Tell me about this man for whom Antoinette has ruined her life,” said Madame la Vicomtesse, brusquely.  “Is he worth it?  No, no man is worth what she has suffered.  What has become of him?  Where is he?  Did you not tell her that you would bring him back?”

“I said that I would bring him back if I could,” I answered, “and I meant it, Madame.”

Madame la Vicomtesse bit her lip.  Had she known me better, she might have smiled.  As for me, I was wholly puzzled to account for these fleeting changes in her humor.

“You have taken a great deal upon your shoulders, Mr. Ritchie,” she said.  “They are from all accounts broad ones.  There, I was wrong to be indignant in your presence,—­you who seem to have spent your life in trying to get others out of difficulties.  Mercy,” she said, with a quick gesture at my protest, “there are few men with whom one might talk thus in so short an acquaintance.  I love the girl, and I cannot help being angry with Mr. Temple.  I suppose there is something to be said on his side.  Let us hear it—­I dare say he could not have a better advocate,” she finished, with an indefinable smile.

I began at the wrong end of my narrative, and it was some time before I had my facts arranged in proper sequence.  I could not forget that Madame la Vicomtesse was looking at me fixedly.  I reviewed Nick’s neglected childhood; painted as well as I might his temperament and character—­his generosity and fearlessness, his recklessness and improvidence.  His loyalty to those he loved, his detestation of those he hated.  I told how, under these conditions, the sins and vagaries of his parents had gone far to wreck his life at the beginning of it.  I told how I had found him again with Sevier, how he had come to New Orleans with me the first time, how he had loved Antoinette, and how he had disappeared after the dreadful scene in the garden at Les Iles, how I had not seen him again for five years.  Here I hesitated, little knowing how to tell the Vicomtesse of that affair in Louisville.  Though I had a sense that I could not keep the truth from so discerning a person, I was startled to find this to be so.