The making of a woman

by Amy Le Feuvre

Miss Lorraine listened. She knew she had not heard all, nor arrived at the true cause of Jean's distaste for her Bohemian life.

Then she asked very quietly—

"And has Mr. L'Estrange disappointed you?"

Jean gave a little shiver, and buried her hot cheeks in Miss Lorraine's gown.

"If I don't tell you to-night, I never shall," she said, with a note of desperation in her tone.

Then she blurted out bluntly—

"He—he never rested, till he made me like him, and two days ago—is it? It seems a year—I found out, he was a married man."

"My poor little Jean!"

Miss Lorraine put her hand softly on her head. And then the tired, excited girl burst into a passion of tears.

"I never wish to see any of them again!" she sobbed. "Every one seems a lie and a fraud, and Paris is a hateful city. It seems to make every one vile? Fancy his wife coming to me! A little half-starved woman supporting herself by needlework, and he—oh, I can't tell you! I will never, never believe in any one again!"