"Yes."

"Was that all he told you?"

Marie looked rather surprised at being cross-questioned in this abrupt
manner; but replied quietly:--

"No; it was not all. He told me much more."

"Yes! yes!" said Lacroix, with the persistency of a cross-examining
lawyer, "And you Marie, what did you say?"

"If you really want to know exactly what I said, my words were to the
effect that I had no time to reopen a closed chapter in my life, and
that my carriage was at the door."

A strange expression, almost of relief, with surprise mingled, crossed
the artist's grave face, and he did not speak for a moment. Then he
said, slowly, in a tone of half-pitying contempt:

"Poor McAllister! What with you and M. Bois-le-Duc, he is not a very
enviable person."

"Then you are sorry for him?"

"Pardon me, I am not. I have only one feeling towards him, and that would
be wiser to keep to myself. Marie, long ago, at Father Point, I saw it
all, though you imagined I was so taken up with my painting and my own
affairs. I knew McAllister was wholly unworthy of the respect and
affection you and M. Bois-le-Duc lavished on him.