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 nothing else matters. Tell me, didn't she try to shake your confidence in me in some way?"

Morton remained silent, and Philippa understood.

"She told you that story about my"—a tear crept into her blue, childlike eyes—"my poor mother's pin. She told me she knew Valdeck had given it to me. The very idea!"

Morton was evidently aghast. "But why on earth," he exclaimed, "should she do such a thing?"

"It's a very delicate subject,"—she blushed deeply,—"but I have heard it I mustn't tell you just where, but on good authority, for it was pretty well known in Paris, there was a love-affair, and she is furiously jealous—even of me, when she found that I was his friend. She interprets every one's feelings for the man by her own sentiments, and she is bent on ruining him—and me, too, if she can incidentally. She is circulating a lie, a wicked, cruel lie. She accuses him of robbery, and by inference, she accuses me of helping him; I believe that's about what it amounts to; at any rate, she says I accepted 186