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 "Not if they were true?" And when he would have protested again, she checked him. "No. You see you offered me an escape, and I was weak enough to take advantage of it."

"You mean an escape from Paris in winter-time?"

She shook her head. "I must make a confession to you. The escape was from much worse: it was from the long tyranny of Mademoiselle Daurel. You write comedies—or tragedies, it may be;—but you don't understand women's quarrels, because even the most adroit man can't understand them. When men really quarrel it is over; they have done with each other; but it isn't so with women. When I said we would go to Paris I knew that before we should quite leave, Mademoiselle Daurel would make overtures, and I was afraid I would be weak enough to listen. My feeling for Hyacinthe might conquer; so we should have gone back to that old life of petty persecution. It has happened before, you see."

"You've broken away and gone back before this, you mean?"

"More than once. The last time it was because—ah, a man could never understand how a woman's hopes can chain her to a persecution! I had this