"You may find him in New York to-morrow. He left on the ten o'clock train to-day."
"This is dreadful—poor Maud," she says, incoherently. "Oh, uncle, Maud is up-stairs. She prays you to see her. Uncle, you must. She has no one to turn to but you. The shadow of a terrible crime is hanging over her head. She must go to prison unless something happens to help her."
"She has made her bed, so let her lie," he says, petulantly.
"Oh, uncle, you must forgive her and befriend her; say that you will."
"I won't," he says, with bitter brevity.
"Let her come to you for five minutes; she can plead her own cause better than I can."
"I decline to see her. Tell her so. Tell her I will never have anything more to do with her," he replies, sternly, leading her to the door, and shutting her out into the hall.
She goes back to her cousin, stumbling over Nellie, who is crouched outside the door, dreading to enter with the story of her non-success.
"He will see me?" Maud says, hopefully, as she enters.
"I am very sorry, dear, but he utterly declines," Reine says, sorrowfully.