"In Paris, I suppose," replied Mildred. "I have left him, and I shall never go back."
"Presbury said you would!" cried her mother. "But I didn't believe it. I don't believe it. I brought you up to do your duty, and I know you will."
This was Mildred's first opportunity for frank and plain speaking; and that is highly conducive to frank and plain thinking. She now began to see clearly why she had quit the general. Said she: "Mamma, to be honest and not mince words, I've left him because there's nothing in it."
"Isn't he rich?" inquired her mother. "I've always had a kind of present—"
"Oh, he's rich, all right," interrupted the girl. "But he saw to it that I got no benefit from that."
"But you wrote me how he was buying you everything!"
"So I thought. In fact he was buying ME nothing." And she went on to explain the general's system.
Her mother listened impatiently. She would have interrupted the long and angry recital many times had not Mildred insisted on a full hearing of her grievances, of the outrages that had been heaped upon her. "And," she ended, "I suppose he's got it so arranged that he could have me arrested as a thief for taking the gold bag."
"Yes, it's terrible and all that," said her mother. "But I should have thought living with me here when Presbury was carrying on so dreadfully would have taught you something. Your case isn't an exception, any more than mine is. That's the sort of thing we women have to put up with from men, when we're in their power."
"Not I," said Mildred loftily.