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his mother had died two years since, worn out by seven years of misery and Ste. Croix. Perhaps if the marriage had been a happy one she would have tried to be reconciled to her father, and gone back to the old home, and then the small Antoine would at least have known something of his near relatives, and who they were, and where they lived. But as it was, Antoine’s mother could not bear the thought of returning to Trent Stoke defeated, and showing her wounds. And so it came that Gaston, his father, was the only near relative that Antoine knew, and Gaston had just announced that he was going to leave him in a Paris hotel.

He raised his head sharply and looked his father full in the face. “Then what do I do?” he said gruffly—but there was a note of fear in his voice.

“You? Really, I do not know. For long, my brave Antoine, you have shown an unbecoming independence of me.”

Antoine waited, silent. He was very much like what Gaston must have been as a boy, except for the grey eyes under his straight black brows. But years had not improved the elder Ste. Croix. His face was lined and puffy, and its expression unpleasant to the last degree, especially at this particular moment. Gaston broke the strain impatiently.

“You make your own arrangements, you understand? I have done enough for you.”

Another pause. Then Antoine, stammering and suddenly childish: “But—but you’ll leave me here? Wh—what can I do?”

“You can ask your friends. Don’t whimper—we never pretended to be devoted to each other, O Télémaque le jeune. You can ask your friends—our friends—for advice and help. I have done everything for you and I am tired of it.”

Antoine showed his teeth in a snarl very like Gaston’s own.