"That is not the term; yet it is true that she sailed on one of
your own colonization ships last week. Her fortune will lie
elsewhere hereafter. It was her own wish."
A sudden sense of helplessness smote upon Josephine St. Auban.
Here, even in this republic, were great and silent powers with
which the individual needed to contend. Absorbed for the time in
that which was nearest her heart, she had forgotten her own
fortunes. Now she suddenly half rose for the first time.
"But, gentlemen," said she, as she held out in her hand some papers
which crackled in her trembling grasp,--"after all, we are at cross
purposes. This is not necessary. My own work is at an end,
already! This very morning it came to an end, and for ever. Will
you not look at these?"
[Illustration: "My own work is at an end."]
"How do you mean, Madam?" The tall grave man near by turned upon
her his beetling brows, his piercing dark eyes. "Your work was
worthy of approval in many ways. What has happened that it should
cease?"
"This!" she said, handing to him the papers which she held.
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