his hands, he might have explained everything, and she———
I know not what she would have done. But one thing is clear—there was something besides her brother’s disappearance between Grandemont’s pleadings for her hand and Adele’s “yes.” Ten years had passed, and what she had seen during the space of that lightning flash remained an indelible picture. She had loved her brother, but was she holding out for the solution of that mystery or for the “Truth”? Women have been known to reverence it, even as an abstract principle. It is said there have been a few who, in the matter of their affections, have considered a life to be a small thing as compared with a lie. That I do not know. But, I wonder, had Grandemont cast himself at her feet crying that his hand had sent Victor to the bottom of that inscrutable river, and that he could no longer sully his love with a lie, I wonder if—I wonder what she would have done!
But, Grandemont Charles, Arcadian little gentleman, never guessed the meaning of that look in Adele’s eyes; and from this last bootless payment of his devoirs he rode away as rich as ever in honour and love, but poor in hope.
That was in September. It was during the first winter month that Grandemont conceived his idea of the renaissance. Since Adèle would never be his, and wealth without her were useless trumpery, why need he add to that hoard of slowly harvested dollars? Why should he even retain that hoard?
Hundreds were the cigarettes he consumed over his
