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Out at Hillside the stones that demarcate the territory of an old-fashioned house are new and snowily whitewashed. Moving vans are bustling along the road. Across the wide fields of Bellaire there is a view of the brown woods on the ridge, turning a faint olive as the leaves gain strength.

Hubert Léonard was born at Bellaire, near Liège, in 1819, but unlike the majority of violinists he did not appear in concerts at an early age, nor did he enter the Paris Conservatoire until he was seventeen. At this time the wife of a wealthy merchant in Brussels took interest in him and provided the means necessary for him to go to Paris.

In 1868 he came back to New Orleans, a hale, stalwart old man, who thought to have a score of years still before him. But the law had never forgotten him and this time found him. In his own home, fighting as the young Captain Bellaire in Napoleon's cavalry had fought, he went down to an assassin's bullet."

True, the thought had flickered through his brain: "And suppose that Lemarc should take the cash and let the credit go? Suppose that he should be contented with the ten thousand dollar bird in his hand and never mind the hypothetical Bellaire treasure bird in the bush?" Well, then, it would be worth it to Ygerne; just for her to know what sort Lemarc was.

"I'd go faster'n anything," decided the girl, throwing up her head. "Your mother's father used to have a family in his tenement house on this place, and they were all very fond of her when she was a girl. One of the sons moved to Bellaire. He's the only one left, and would help you, I know." "Mebbe if you'd talk to my uncle " Virginia cut in. An emphatic negative gesture frightened her.

Jinnie laughed gaily and went to the kitchen, where for two hours, with Bobbie curled up in the chair holding Happy Pete, she brought from the strings of the instrument she loved, mournful tunes mingled with laughing songs, such as no one in Bellaire had ever heard.

Behind them lay the hard trails which separately each had travelled; before them now had the two trails merged, running pleasantly into one; behind them, far back in the lonely solitudes of the mountains, was the old Chateau Bellaire wrapped about in its own history as in a cloak of sable; in front of them, dozing upon the river banks, was MacLeod's Settlement.

And, knowing instinctively that again his answer would be silence, she went on, "It was very picturesque, your little fight the other night. The woman who did the shooting, I wondered whether she really loved Kootanie George most . . . or you?" "Look here, Miss Ygerne . . ." "Ygerne Bellaire," she said with an affected demureness which dimpled at him. "So you may say: 'Miss Bellaire."

Thompson- Bellaire, the Madden woman, were not typical members of New York's exclusive circles! Applied to them, 'smart' was a laughably inadequate term; they were worse than fast; they were frankly vicious. This was more than a gay week-end party; it was an orgy.

In a moment she went on swiftly, the eyes turned upon Drennen very bright, a flush of excitement in her cheeks. "My grandmother died soon after Paul Bellaire. They had just the one child, my father. He was no coward; no man ever dared say that of him; but he seemed to have none of the adventuresome blood of his parents. And yet that blood has come down to me!