But Lucille was always too quick for me, and by the time I began to understand her humour it changed and left me far behind.
"Where have you been all these months ?" she asked, almost as if the matter interested her.

"And why have you not written ?" "I have been chasing a chimera, Mademoiselle." "Which you will never catch." "Which I shall never abandon," answered I, quite failing to emulate her lightness of tone.
When we went indoors and found Madame with her lace-work in the morning-room upstairs, with the windows overlooking the sea--the room, by the way, where I now sit and write--Lucille's manner as abruptly changed again.
"Mother," she said, "here is Monsieur Howard, our benefactor." "I am glad, mon ami, that you have come," were Madame's words of welcome.

And after the manner of good housewives she then inquired when and where I had last eaten.
I had brought a number of the illustrated journals of the day, and with the aid of these convinced even Lucille that the flight from Paris had not been an unnecessary precaution.

Upon the heels of the horror of the long siege had followed the greater disorder of the Commune, when brave men were shot down by the insurgent National Guard, and all Paris was at the mercy of the rabble.

Indeed, this Reign of Terror must ever remain a blot on the civilisation of the century and the history of the French people.
It was apparent to me that while Madame de Clericy, who was of a more philosophic nature, accepted exile and dependence on myself without great reluctance, Lucille chafed under the knowledge that they were for the moment beholden to me.