of its whole course, from its cradle in the snowy Alps

He leapt off the window seat and snatched at the money, like a famished animal snatching at a piece of meat. Mrs. Wagner caught him by the arm, and looked at him. He lifted his eyes to hers, then lowered them again as if he was ashamed of himself.

"Oh, to be sure!" he said, "I have forgotten my manners, I haven't said Thank you. A lapse of memory, I suppose. Thank you, Mrs. Housekeeper." In a moment more, he and his bag were on their way to the fashionable quarter of the town.

"You will make allowances for my poor little Jack, I am sure," said Mrs. Wagner.

"My dear madam, Jack amuses me!"

Mrs. Wagner winced a little at the tone of the widow's reply. "I have cured him of all the worst results of his cruel imprisonment in the mad-house," she went on. "But his harmless vanity seems to be inbred; I can do nothing with him on that side of his character. He is proud of being trusted with anything, especially with keys; and he has been kept waiting for them, while I had far more important matters to occupy me. In a day or two he will be more accustomed to his great responsibility, as he calls it."

"Of course you don't trust him," said Madame Fontaine, "with keys that are of any importance; like the key of your desk there, for instance."

Mrs. Wagner's steady gray eyes began to brighten. "I can trust him with anything," she answered emphatically.

Madame Fontaine arched her handsome brows in a mutely polite expression of extreme surprise.