Jeanne of the Marshes

aint sign from Forrest. She leane

really beginning to get on my nerves a little. There is an ancestor exactly opposite who has fixed me with a luminous an

as he rose and tu

ent. I know exactly how she is feeling, for I myself am a constant su

babble. I prefer our present surroundings, and I should not mind at all if some of those dis

l la

royalty," he continued, "we can boast an octagonal chamber. I fear that its glories are of the past, but it

fire burnt in an open grate. Lamps and a fine candelabrum gave a sufficiency of light. The furniture, though old, was graceful, and of French design. It had been the sitting chamber of the ladies of the De la Borne family for generations, and it bore

all entered. "My frescoes are faded, but they represent flowers, not faces

before a Louis Quinze card-table, and threw a p

these two boys, Nigel? You are the only man who understand

Forrest answered smoothl

leaned over and

he remarked. "What d

ed and looked at him. He was standing upon the hea

afraid of the Princess and Forrest. The last

Princess glanced toward Forrest,

ou will,"

ace and the Pr

smile, "it seems as though fate

rne said, also throwing down an ac

rom the pack. Forrest's eyes seemed to narrow a little

have played against you often, Forrest, but I think thi

sat down. They cut again for

d her fingers upon the heavy curtains. Cecil de la

l that there are eyes in this room, too, only that they are looking

Ocean, and if you look long enough you will see the white of the breakers. Listen! You will hear,

urts had moved to have her set aside, and failed. A Cardinal of her late husband's faith, empowered to treat with her on behalf of his relations, offered a fortune for her cession of Jeanne, and was laughed at for his pains. Whatever her life had been, she remained custodian of the child of the great banker whom she had married late in life. She endured calmly the threats, the entreaties, the bribes, of Jeanne's own relations. Jeanne, she was determined, should enter life under her wing, and hers only. In the end she had her way. Jeanne was entering life now, not through the respectable but somewh

ed from folly only by a certain not altogether wholesome cleverness, yet with a disposition which sometimes gained for him friends

g and feeding himself upon an income of less than nothing a year. He had met the Princess at Marienbad years ago, and silently took his place in her suite. Why, no one seemed to know, not even at first the Princess herself, who thought him c

ld, there was the same inscrutable expression, the same calm languor of one who takes and receives what life offers with the indifference of the cynic, or the imperturbability of the philosopher. There was little of the joy or the anticipation of youth there, and yet, behind the eyes, as they looked out into the darkness, there was something-some such effort, perhaps, as one seeking to p