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90 complete change of interests and surroundings as may enable me to forget. I want to work hard at painting. I have always wanted this ever since I was a child, and I can do so nowhere so well as in Paris. Then, not a soul knows me there. I can lead my own life, unmolested—which I couldn't do in London."

"But," interrupted the old solicitor, "whom are you going with?"

"No one."

"Then who are you going to? You don't mean to tell me you propose living in Paris all alone?"

"I shall go into a 'pension.'"

"You surely mean to take a maid with you?"

"Oh, that would spoil it all! I want to be unknown; above all, that the fact of my disgusting fortune, which has brought me such misery already, should be unknown. If I had a maid, you know very well this could never be the case."

"Does your uncle know of this project?"

"Certainly not—at present. You will have to break it to him, later."

"But he is your guardian. If only for form's sake, you must consult Well, if you prefer it, you must tell him of your determination. You cannot leave his house, and run off abroad, without a word."

"The case is exceptional," said the girl, looking at him straight in the face, "and must be treated exceptionally. I can't see my uncle. I can't tell him why I leave his house—why I escape from England. I come to you because you were my father's friend, and he told me to trust you. I need not have come. I could have gone