“_Bon jour, Monsieur Rossiter_,” fell suddenly on Phil’s ear, and
turning, he saw Pierre, who handed him a dainty note, and waited while
he read it.

It was dated at “Hetherton Place, 9 o’clock A.M., and read as follows:

                                                             “DEAR PHIL:

  “What a simpleton you must be to think I was in earnest when I told
  you to go and never come back again. I know I tried you awfully and so
  you did me, and you called me such dreadful names—a _vixen_, a
  _virago_, a _cat_, and a _termagant_, and the dear knows what, and I
  called you a _bore_, and a _spooney_, and said I hated you, but, Phil,
  I do not, and I am just as lonesome without you as I can be, and last
  night, after I went to my room, I cried real hard, and said to myself,
  ‘I am sorry, Phil,’ and I am, and want you to forgive me, and come
  right over here with Pierre and stay to lunch. I have ordered broiled
  chicken, with pop-overs and maple sirup. You know you can eat a dozen.
  I shall be out on the rocks, and see you when you come down the hill,
  and I will tie my pocket-handkerchief to my parasol and wave it for a
  signal. And now you will come, won’t you, and we will make it up, and
  never, never fight again?

                                  “Your repentant
                                                              “QUEENIE.”

Phil Rossiter was not the man to withstand an appeal like this, and, as
he read it, India and everything else was forgotten in his intense
desire to fly to the girl waiting for him.

Mr. Beresford saw Pierre hand him the note, knew it was from Reinette,
and watched him as he read it, while his color came and went like that
of some young schoolgirl, and he was not greatly surprised when Phil
said to him, as he rose to leave the office:

“By the way, I’ve been thinking it over, and I don’t believe I care to
go to India; it is too far away. There is Will Granger—just the fellow
they want, and he needs money badly; offer it to him.”

Phil was in the street by this time, and ten minutes later he was
galloping toward Hetherton Place and the girl whose signal he saw as she
waved it aloft to let him know she was there. And Phil rode hard and
fast until he was at her side, sitting just where Mr. Beresford had
stood the night before and asked her to be his wife.

How sweet and lovely she was with that air of shyness and penitence! for
she was very sorry for what had passed, and very glad to have Phil back;
and she gave him both her hands, and offered no resistance when he
kissed them more than once, and held them while he talked to her, and
asked if she did not think him weak and silly to come the minute she
sent for him.

“No, I don’t,” she said; “I knew you would come back, just as I knew I
should send for you. It is useless for us to try to live apart, for what
would the world be to either of us without the other?”

“Nothing, Queenie, nothing,” Phil said, eagerly, as he drew her down
beside him and passed his arm around her waist, while the light of a new
hope and joy shone all over his face.

Phil had long ago told himself that he loved Queenie with more than a
cousin’s love, and had only been deterred from telling her so by her
fitful moods, sometimes all sunshine, sometimes all storm. But now he
surely might speak with the full assurance of a favorable answer, for
what but this could her manner mean, and her assertion that they could
not live apart. She loved him, he was certain; and with his arm around
her, he began rapidly and impetuously to tell her how inexpressibly dear
she was to him, and to speak of the future when she would be his wife,
as if everything were understood and settled between them.

“We will never quarrel then, will we, darling?” he said. “I should not
like to see a frown on my wife’s face, and know it was meant for me, and
I will be so good and loving that you will not wish to call me a bore,
and send me away from you. And we will be married at once. You need a
husband to care for you, and there is no reason why we should wait a
day. I will tell mother to-night, and she will be so glad, and so will
Ethel and Grace, for they all love you dearly. Why don’t you speak to
me, Queenie?” he said, as she did not answer him, but sat like one dead
to all sense of speech or hearing. “Why, Queenie, what is the matter?
How white you are,” he continued, as he stooped at last to look into the
face, which was pale as ashes, with an expression of pain, and even
horror, upon it, which he could not understand.

“Oh, Phil, you have killed me,” Queenie said, at last, as she released
herself from him and moved to another rock, where she sat down and
looked at him with eyes from which the hot tears were falling like rain.

“Killed you, Queenie!” Phil cried. “How could I kill you by telling you
that I loved you, when you must have known it already? Surely, surely,
you have not been deceiving me all this time—not been leading me on to
believe you loved me, just as I love you, only to mock me at the last?
That would be cruel, indeed.”

And this he said because of something in her face and eyes which filled
him with dread and fear.

“Oh, Phil,” Queenie replied, beating the air with her hands, as she
always did when excited, “if my conscience reproved me one whit, and
said I had purposely misled you for my own amusement, I would drown
myself in Lake Petit, but I have not, I certainly have not. I thought——”

“You thought,” Phil interrupted her, as she hesitated a moment—“thought
what? That I was a stock—a stone to be unmoved by your beauty and
sweetness, and—I will say it—your wiles and witcheries, which, if they
meant nothing, were damnable, to say the least, and prove you to be the
most heartless coquette that ever breathed. Girls do not usually write
notes to men such as you have written me, begging them to come back, and
then, when they go, receive them as you have received me, without
meaning something, and if you do not mean marriage, may I ask what you
do mean?”

He spoke bitterly, but not at all as he had ever spoken to her before
when his temper and hers were at their height. It was the outraged,
insulted man, not the passionate boy speaking to her now, and Queenie
recognized the difference, and shivered from head to foot, as she
crouched down on her knees beside him and sobbed:

“Listen to me, Phil, before you judge so harshly, and believe me, as I
hope for heaven, I never tried to make you love me this way. You are my
cousin—my blood relation; our mothers were sisters, and I have been
taught that such unions were wicked, unnatural, such as God disapproves
and curses.”

“You are not a Roman Catholic?” Phil said, quickly, and she replied:

“No, but I had much of that teaching in my childhood, at home in France,
and this is one of the things which took deep root in my mind. I had a
governess who married her own cousin in spite of everything, and two of
her children were idiots, while the third was deaf and dumb, and when
the poor mother knew that, she drowned herself in the Seine. Phil, I
would no sooner marry my cousin than I would my brother, if I had one,
and I looked upon you as a brother, and loved you as such, and thought
you understood. Surely, you cannot think me so brazen-faced and bold as
to treat you as I have, with a view to making you want me for your wife.
I am sorry, Phil, so sorry, and I wish I had never crossed the sea, for
I can never be your wife—never! My whole nature revolts against it, the
same as if you were my brother, and I know that all is over between
us—that we can never be to each other again what we have been in the
past. You will come here no more as you have come, and the days will be
so long without you, Phil, and, worse than all, you will perhaps think
always that I meant to deceive you; but I didn’t. Oh, I didn’t, and you
must believe it and forgive me! Will you?”

She was still kneeling before him, her white face upturned to his, and
every muscle quivering with anguish, as she thus importuned him. He
could not resist her, and stooping down he kissed the quivering lips,
but did not say he forgave her; he asked, instead: “If I were not your
cousin, could you marry me?”

“I don’t know, Phil. You see, I never thought about you in that way. I
might, perhaps, in time, but I could not now, for you are like a
brother, and I must go back to the beginning and build up a new kind of
love for you; and then, Phil, I should wish you to be a little different
from what you are now. Girls do not generally marry men who have—”

Here Queenie stopped suddenly, appalled at her own temerity, but Phil
bade her go on in a tone she must obey, and she went on, and said:

“Who have nothing to do but amuse themselves and others. It is all very
nice in cousins and brothers to know how to run our sewing-machines and
how our dresses should be trimmed and ought to hang, but we wish our
husbands to be different from that; wish them to have some aim in
life—some occupation, and you have none. You have never done anything
toward earning your own living. Your father is rich, it is true, and
able to support you, but it is more manly to support one’s self—don’t
you think so?”

She spoke very gently, but every word was a sting, and hurt Phil, if
possible, more than her rejection of him had done.

“Yes, I see,” he answered bitterly. “You think me a lazy dog, whom
people generally despise, and so I am, but it is very hard to hear it
from you, Queenie; hard to know that I have neither your love nor your
respect, when, fool that I was, I believed I had both.”

“And so you have, Phil; so you have,” Reinette said, eagerly, touched by
the grieved, hopeless expression of his face, which was not at all like
Phil’s face, usually so bright and happy. “You have both my love and
respect—love as a sister—for neither Ethel nor Grace can love you better
than I do, in a certain way, and I respect and esteem you as the
kindest, and best, and most unselfish Phil in all the world. Don’t,
Phil, oh, don’t cry!” she continued, in a tone of agonized entreaty, as
the great tears, which he could not restrain, rolled down his white
face, which was convulsed with pain. “If you cry like that, I shall wish
I were dead, and I almost wish so now,” she added, frightened by the
storm of sobs and tears to which he at last gave vent.

She was still kneeling by him, and she crept down closer to him, and
took his hands from his face, where he had put them, and wiped his tears
away, while her own fell fast as she tried to comfort him and could not,
for in only one way could she do that, and, with her view of the matter
that was impossible. On that point she was as firm and conscientious as
the most rigid Roman Catholic. To marry her cousin would be wicked, and
so there was no hope for him in that way; but may be she could comfort
him in another, and she said, at last:

“Phil, I can never marry you; that is just as impossible as for your
sister to do it, but I can promise never to marry any one else. That
would not be hard, for I do not believe I shall ever see any one for
whom I care as I do for you; and, if you wish it, I’ll swear to remain
single for your sake forever. Shall I?”

“No, Queenie; no. I am not so selfish as that,” he said. “You ought to
marry; you need a husband here at Hetherton Place—somebody with energy
and will, and not an effeminate idler like me.”

He was still smarting from the hurt of her last objection to him, and he
went on:

“Whether you marry or not cannot affect me, for I am going away—going to
do something and be a man, whom you will never taunt again with his
laziness and sloth.”

“Oh, Phil, you misunderstood me! I did not taunt you. I only told you
that girls would rather their lovers had some occupation. It was not a
taunt at all. Forgive me, Phil. I am so sorry—oh, so sorry for this
morning’s work, when I meant to be so happy!”

Phil had risen to his feet, and she had risen, too, and stood looking up
at him with an expression which, if it was not born of love, was near of
kin to it, and nearly maddened Phil.

“Queenie,” he began, laying his hands upon her shoulders and looking
fixedly into her eyes, “do you mean to send me away with no word of
hope?—mean that you cannot be my wife?”

“Yes, Phil; I mean it. I can never be your wife; because I am your
cousin, and because I do not love you in that way,” she said.

And Phil knew she meant it, and was conscious of a death-like sickness
stealing over and mastering him, and making him sit down again upon the
rock, while every thing grew dark around him, and Queenie’s voice seemed
a long way off, as she spoke to him in affrighted tones, and asked if he
were fainting.

He did not faint, though it was some minutes before he was himself again
and arose to say good-by. There was no question of lunch, no thought of
broiled chicken and pop-overs, for both were past caring for such things
now, and only remembered that in some sense, this good-by was forever.

She thought he would, of course, come to Hetherton Place
again—to-morrow, perhaps—but not as he had come heretofore; not as in
the old happy days; not as the Phil with whom she could play and
coquette, but more as a stranger; more like Mr. Beresford before he
troubled her with his tale of love.

He knew he should not come again to-morrow, nor for many, many
to-morrows—never, perhaps; for there was danger in that far-off eastern
land to which he now meant to go. Possibly his grave was there waiting
for him, or he might tarry years and years, until the bright, beautiful
girl standing before him had grown old and gray with the cares of life.
And so, to him, it was good-by forever; but he would not tell her so. He
would wait and write his farewell. But he must kiss her once, for the
sake of all she had been to him, and that he had hoped she would be. He
was a tall young man of six feet and she a wee little girl, whom he
could take in his arms as he would a child; and he took her in his arms,
and kissed her forehead and lips, and said to her:

“Remember, Queenie, whatever comes, my love for you will remain
unchanged; for it was not the love of a day or a year, but love till
death, and after, too, if such a thing can be. Good-by! I’m going now.”

And he went swiftly from her, while she watched him with a throbbing
heart; and neither of them guessed just where or how they would meet
again.

                             CHAPTER XXVI.
                            PHIL GOES AWAY.

Mr. Beresford was alone in his office when Phil came in after his return
from Hetherton Place, and asked, abruptly:

“Have you seen Will Granger about going to India?”

“Not yet; no, I thought I would wait till to-night,” Mr. Beresford
replied, and Phil continued:

“Don’t see him, then; I will take the place. Write so to your uncle at
once, or perhaps I had better write myself.”

Something in the tone of his voice made Mr. Beresford turn quickly and
look at him.

“Why, Phil,” he said, “what ails you? What has happened to make you look
so white and strange?”

“Nothing,” Phil answered—“that is, nothing of any consequence to any one
but myself.” Then, moved by a sudden impulse to tell somebody, Phil
burst out: “Beresford, I can trust you, I know, for you have always been
my friend.”

“Yes,” faltered Mr. Beresford, thinking remorsefully of what he said to
Reinette, and wondering if Phil would think that friendly, if he knew.

“I must tell somebody—talk to somebody, or go crazy,” Phil continued.
“The fact is, I have made a fool of myself and been _rejected_, as I
deserved.”

“You rejected! By whom?” Mr. Beresford asked, although he felt that he
knew perfectly well what the answer would be.

“By Reinette, of course. What other woman is there on the face of the
earth whose no is worth caring for? I asked her to be my wife, and she
refused, and made me know she meant it; and now I am going to India, for
I cannot stay here.”

“What reason did she give for her refusal?” Mr. Beresford asked, feeling
like a guilty hypocrite, and Phil replied:

“She had three reasons, each of them good and sufficient in her own
mind. First, she did not love me in _that way_, as she expressed it;
second, I am her cousin, and, with her Roman Catholic notions, it is an
unpardonable sin to marry one’s cousin; and third, she could not marry a
man with no aim, no occupation, no business except to loop up dresses
and run a sewing-machine. That’s what she said, or something like it,
and that hurt me worst of all, for it made me feel so small, so
contemptible: and, after she said it, I knew how impossible it was for
her even to respect such a dawdling, effeminate Sardanapalus as I must
appear to her.”

At the mention of Sardanapalus Mr. Beresford started, for that was the
name he had used when speaking of Phil to Reinette. Had she told him? It
was not likely, else he had never come there with his confidence, which
seemed so like a stab to the conscience-stricken man, who at last could
bear it no longer, and as Phil went on with his story, showing in all he
said how implicitly he trusted him, he burst out:

“Stop, Phil, stop a minute, while I make a confession to you, and then
you will not think me so much your friend, though Heaven knows I am, and
that there is no man living I like as well. But, Phil, I went back on
you once, and in a moment of weakness said things for which I blush. I,
too, have offered myself to Reinette Hetherton.”

“You! When?” Phil exclaimed, and Mr. Beresford replied:

“Only last night, and when she refused me, and said she did not love me,
I accused you of being my rival, and in my mad jealousy said things of
you which only a coward could have said of his friend. I sneered at your
idle, aimless life, and said that women generally preferred a
Sardanapalus to energetic, strong men, or something like that.”

“_You_ said this of _me_ to Reinette, and I thought you my friend! I
would never have served you so,” Phil said, and in his eyes there was an
expression which hurt Mr. Beresford cruelly, and made him think of the
wounded Cæsar when he cried out, “_Et tu, Brute!_”

“Yes, I said it, Phil, but I took it all back, and made what amends I
could. Queenie will tell you so if you ask her. She flew in my face like
a yellow-jacket, and defended you bravely. Forgive me, Phil; I am
greatly ashamed of myself.”

He offered his hand to the young man, in whose eyes tears were shining,
but who did not refuse to take it, though he was still smarting under
this new pain.

“I can forgive you,” he said, with a faint smile, “because Queenie
defended me, but it is very hard to bear. You say she refused _you_ and
gave you no hope?” Mr. Beresford thought of the year’s probation he had
insisted upon, and spoke of it to Phil, but added:

“She told me, however, that it was useless, for at the end of the time
her answer would be the same, so you see there is no hope for me
either;” and this he said because he saw how utterly crushed and
heart-broken Phil was, and he would not add to his pain by confessing
that away down in his heart there _was_ a shadowy hope that Queenie
might change her mind, especially with Phil away, for he was going. He
had made up his mind to that, and before returning home he wrote himself
to the firm in New York, accepting the situation, and saying he would be
in the city the next evening, as he wished for a few days before sailing
in which to post himself with reference to the business.

“But why go to-morrow? There is no such haste necessary,” Mr. Beresford
said, when he heard the contents of the letter, and Phil replied:

“I must go before I see her again; the sight of her might unman me and
make me give it up.”

So the letter was sent, and when Phil went home to dinner at night he
startled his family by telling them that he was going to India for a
year, and possibly longer.

“To India!” both mother and sisters exclaimed, and then Phil explained
it to them.

The former opposed the plan with all her strength, for life without Phil
would be nothing to the mother who loved him so much. Mr. Rossiter, on
the contrary, approved it. It was no way for a young man to hang on to
his mother’s apron strings all his days, he said; Phil ought to do
something for himself. This was only a repetition of the old story of
idleness and ease, and confirmed Phil in his purpose. He would make
something of himself—would show that he was capable of higher occupation
than devising trimming for dresses and running a sewing-machine. He was
very sore on the subject of the sewing-machine, and very reticent all
through the dinner, and when it was over excused himself to his sisters,
saying he had letters to write and some few matters which must be
attended to. It was very sudden to them all—his going away—but, as he
said, he was his own master and must act for himself, and when his
mother tried to persuade him to give it up, he answered:

“No, I have staid with you too long. You are the best and dearest mother
in the world, but you have done wrong not to send me away before this,
and make me stay away, too. I should have been more of a man among men.
I see it now, and must take the first chance offered me. A year is not
very long, and I shall write to you every week.”

So Mrs. Rossiter gave it up, and busied herself with various
preparations for his comfort, and said she should go to New York to see
him off, and tried to seem cheerful and happy, and tried, with his
sisters, to fathom the cloud which overshadowed his face, and made him
so unlike himself. What had happened to him, and was Reinette in any way
connected with it? They thought so, and when in the morning he said he
was going to bid his grandmother and Anna good-by, and they asked if he
were not going to see Reinette, too, and he answered: “I saw her
yesterday, but give her this letter when I am gone,” they were sure of
it, and for the first time since they had known her, they felt a little
vexed with the girl, who even then was watching from her window for the
rider coming over the river, across the causeway, and up the long hill
as he would not come again, for when, later in the day, the express
train for New York stopped at West Merrivale, it carried him along
toward the new life which was to have an aim and occupation.

                             CHAPTER XXVII.
                       HOW QUEENIE BORE THE NEWS.

She saw the long train as it came across the plains from East
Merrivale—saw it shoot under the bridge, past the station, and glide
swiftly on by the river-side until it was lost to view in the deep cut
by the old gold-mine, and remembered that afterward she heard the
whistle as the train stopped at West Merrivale a few minutes and then
went speeding on to the West But she never dreamed that it carried with
it a young man whose face was pale as ashes as he sat with folded arms,
and hat pulled over his eyes, seeing nothing of what was passing around
him, and thinking only of her, listening even then for the sound of his
horse’s feet coming up the hill. For Queenie felt sure he would come
back to her, and that in some way they would make it up, and resume
their old, delightful relations with each other. And she watched for him
all day long, and was beginning to get restless and impatient, when,
about sunset, the Rossiter carriage came slowly up the hill and into the
yard.

In a trice Queenie was at the door, feeling certain that the recreant
Phil had driven over with his sisters, as he sometimes did. But only
Ethel and Grace were there, and it struck Queenie that there was
something a little strange in their manner, while Grace had evidently
been crying.

“I am so glad you have come!” she said, as she led the way into the
house. “I have been so lonely to-day, with not a person to see me except
the major and Anna, who were here a few moments this morning, and who
are so absorbed in each other as to be of no account to any one else. I
do believe he is in earnest, and means to marry her; and then won’t we
have to bow to my Lady Rossiter! Where’s Phil, and why has not he been
here to-day?”

“Phil has gone; you surely knew that, or, at least, that he was going;
he was here yesterday,” Ethel said; and in her voice there was a
hardness, as if her cousin were trifling with her thus to ask for her
brother.

But she knew better when she saw how white Queenie grew, as she repeated
after her:

“Gone, and I knew of his going! You are mistaken; I know nothing. Where
has he gone?”

“To India!” Ethel said.

And then Reinette grasped the chair near which she was standing with
both hands, and leaning heavily upon it, asked, in a half whisper, for
something was choking her so that she could not speak aloud:

“To India! For what? And how long will he be gone?”

As rapidly as possible Ethel told all she knew of a matter which had
taken them so by surprise, and which had so affected her mother that she
was sick in bed.

For a moment Queenie did not speak, but stood staring at Ethel, who,
sure that she was in fault, went pitilessly on:

“We thought you had something to do with it; that you sent him away, for
it was after he came from here yesterday that he decided to go; he had
given it up before.”

“I sent him away!—sent him to India to die, as he will! No, no; I did
not do that,” Queenie cried, piteously. “I said I could not marry him,
and he my cousin; and I could not, any more than you could marry him, he
being your brother. But I did not think he’d go away. Oh! what shall we
do without Phil?”

Reinette was sobbing passionately, and Ethel and Grace were crying with
her, for Phil had made the happiness of their lives, and without him
they were very desolate.

“Did he speak of me?” Queenie asked, at last. “Did he leave no word? no
message? no good-by?”

“He left this for you,” Ethel said, passing the letter to Queenie, who
clutched it eagerly, but would not read it there with the sisters
looking on. That they blamed her, and held her responsible for Phil’s
India trip, she was certain, and she felt glad when they at last said
good-night, and left her to herself and her letter—Phil’s letter—which
she read in the privacy of her room, and which nearly broke her heart.

“Dear Queenie,” he began, “I am going away—for a year certainly, and
perhaps, forever, for men of my habits, who have never been accustomed
to hardships of any kind, die easily in that hot climate.”

“Oh-h!” and Reinette groaned bitterly, as she thought, “Why did Phil say
what will make me feel like his murderer, if he should die out there.”

Then she read on:

“I am going to India on business for a firm in New York, of which Mr.
Beresford’s uncle is the head. The salary is good, and the duties such
as I can perform, and so I am going. Mr. Beresford made me the offer
this morning, and with my usual indolence I declined it, but I did not
then know your opinion of me; did not know how you despised me for my
effeminacy and laziness. Queenie, I do believe that hurt me more than
your refusal of me. I might live without your love, perhaps, but not
without your respect, and so I am going to begin life anew, with some
aim, some occupation, and you shall never taunt me again with my
idleness. But oh, Queenie, how I love you, and how I long to hold you in
my arms as my own darling. It is a strange power which you have over us
men—a power to hold us at your will by one glance of your eyes, or toss
of your head. Other faces may be more beautiful than yours; some would
say that Margery La Rue’s was one of them, but there is something about
you more attractive than mere regularity of feature or purity of
complexion, and men go down before it as I have done, body and soul,
with no hope or wish for anything else, if you must be denied me. May
you never know how my heart is aching as I write this, my farewell to
you; and yet to have known and loved you is the dearest thing in life,
and the memory of you will help to make me a man. I know you will be
sorry when I am gone, and miss me everywhere, but you will get
accustomed to it in time. Some one else will take my place; and, just
here, although I do not pretend to be so good or unselfish that it does
not cost me a pang to do it I would say a word for Mr. Beresford. He
knows why I go away, for I told him, and like the splendid fellow he is,
he confessed what he said of me to you, and asked my pardon for it, and
I forgave him, and you must do so, too, and not be hot, and rash, and
bitter against him, as something tells me you may be, when you know I am
gone, and that possibly Mr. Beresford suggested to you the words which
made me go. He told me of your refusal of himself, but he hopes time may
change you; and if it does—oh, my darling, how can I say it, loving you
as I do?—if it does, don’t worry and tease him, but deal with him
honestly and openly, as a true woman should deal with a true, honest
man. And now, good-by, and if it is forever—if I never come back
again—remember that I love you always, always! and I shall carry your
image with me wherever I go, and so, in fancy, I put my arms around you
and hold you for a moment as my own, and kiss your dear face, feeling
sure that if it were really so, that I was saying good-by to you forever
and you knew it, you would kiss me back once at least, in token of all
we have been to each other.”

“Oh, Phil, Phil, yes, a thousand times would I kiss you, if you were
back again! and I am so sorry for the nasty words I said about your
idleness,” Reinette cried, as, with Phil’s letter clutched tightly in
her hand, she lay upon her face sobbing bitterly, and wondering what
life was worth to her now, that Phil was gone.

“I couldn’t marry him, I couldn’t, for he is my cousin!” she said; “and
I do not love him that way, but he was so much to me, how can I live
without him?”

And then there began to creep into her heart hot, resentful feelings
toward Mr. Beresford, who had put it into her mind to taunt Phil with
his idleness.

“I hate him—I hate him!” she said, stamping her little feet by way of
emphasis, but when she remembered that Phil had forgiven him, and still
held him as his friend, and wished her to do so, she grew more calm and
less resentful toward him, but declined to see him, when, next morning,
he rode over to Hetherton Place and asked for her.

“Tell him I am sick,” she said to Pierre, “and can see no one, unless it
is Margery. Ask him, please, to call at her door, and tell her to come
to me, for I am in great trouble.”

With a suspicion as to the nature of Queenie’s trouble, Mr. Beresford
rode back to town and delivered the message to Margery, who went at once
to her friend and tried to comfort her. But Queenie refused to be
comforted. Phil was gone, and what was there now for her?

“You can bring him back. The ship does not sail for some days you say,
and a word from you will change his mind,” Margery said, caressing the
bowed head resting on her lap.

“Do you think—do you believe he would come back, if I were to write and
beg him?” Queenie asked, quickly, lifting up her tear-stained face.

“I’ve no doubt of it,” Margery said; “but, darling, if you do that he
will have a right to expect you to marry him. Sending for him to come
back would mean nothing else, nor would anything else satisfy him.”

“Then he must go,” Queenie answered, with a rain of tears. “I cannot
marry my cousin; that is a part of my religion. It would be hideous to
do it. Phil must go; but my whole life goes with him. Oh, Phil, I am
nothing, nothing without you. Why were you so silly as to fall in love
and so spoil everything?”

That night, as Margery sat with her mother over their tea talking of
Queenie, Mrs. La Rue said to her;

“If Mr. Rossiter were not her cousin, do you think she would marry him?”

“I have no doubt of it,” Margery replied. “She fancies she does not love
him _in that way_, as she expresses it, but if the obstacle of
cousinship were removed, I believe she would feel differently. Poor
little girl, she is so cast down and wretched, thinking she has driven
him away to die, as she declares he will.”

Mrs. La Rue had listened intently to all Margery told her of Reinette’s
distress, and there were tears in her eyes as she cleared away the tea
things, and busied herself with her household cares.

“Poor little girl,” she whispered to herself. “Would her love for him
outweigh everything—everything, I wonder? Is it mightier than her
pride?”

                            CHAPTER XXVIII.
                       MRS. LA RUE’S RESOLUTION.

There was a worn, tired look on Mrs. La Rue’s face next morning, which
she accounted for by saying she had not slept well, and that her head
was aching. A walk in the crisp autumn air would do her good, she said;
and soon after breakfast she left the house, and started toward
Hetherton Place. Twice on the causeway she sat down to rest, and once on
the bank by the side of the road which led up the long hill. Here she
sat for a long time, with her head bowed upon her knees, while she
seemed to be absorbed in painful, and even agonized reflection, for she
rocked to and fro, and whispered occasionally to herself. In the
distance there was the sound of wheels—some one was coming; and not
caring to be seen, she arose, and climbing the low stone wall, went up
the steep hill-side to the ledge of rocks, where Phil had sat with
Queenie and heard his doom. It was the first time Mrs. La Rue had ever
been there, and for a moment she stood transfixed with surprise and
delight at the lovely view before her. In the clear autumn air objects
were visible for miles and miles away, but it was not so much at the
distant landscape she gazed as at the scene directly about her—at the
broad, rich acres of Hetherton Place, stretching away to the westward,
and southward, and eastward, and embracing some of the most valuable
land in Merrivale; at the house itself, standing there on the heights so
stately and grand, with aristocracy and blood showing themselves from
every casement and door-post; and lastly, at the beautiful grounds, so
like the parks of some of the old chateaus in France, with their
terraces, and winding walks, and pieces of statuary gleaming here and
there among the evergreens.

“A goodly heritage truly,” the woman said. “And would she give it all
for love? God only knows, and I can only know by trying. If she will see
me, I must go forward; if she refuses, I shall take it as a sign that I
must forevermore keep silent.”

Thus deciding, she walked quickly across the fields, and soon stood
ringing at the door, which was opened by Pierre himself.

“Miss Hetherton was still in her room,” he said, “but he would take any
message madame chose to give him;” and his manner showed plainly the
great distance he felt there was between his mistress and the woman who,
he knew, was born in the same rank of life as himself.

“Tell her Margery’s mother is here, and very anxious to see her,” Mrs.
La Rue said; and with a bow, Pierre departed, leaving her alone in the
hall.

He had not asked her to sit down, but she felt too faint and tremulous
to stand, and, sinking into a chair, leaned her head against the
hat-stand, and shutting her eyes, waited as people wait for some great
shock or blow which they know is inevitable. How long Pierre was gone
she could not guess, for she was lost to all consciousness of time, and
was only roused when he laid his hand upon her shoulder and demanded
what was the matter, and if she were sick. Then she looked up, and
showed him a face so white, so full of pain, and dread, and horror, that
he asked her again what was the matter.

“Nothing, nothing,” she answered, sharply. “Tell me what did she say?
Will she see me?”

“She bade me tell you she could not see you, but if your errand was very
particular or concerned Miss Margery, you were to give it to me,” Pierre
replied, and in an instant the whole aspect of the woman changed, the
deathly pallor left her face, and the look of dread and anguish was
succeeded by one of intense relief as she exclaimed:

“Thank God! thank God! for I could not have borne it. I could not have
done it at the last, and now I know it is not required of me. I have no
errand, no message; good-morning,” and she darted from the door, while
Pierre looked wonderingly after her, saying to himself, “I believe the
woman is crazy.”

And in good truth insanity would best describe Mrs. La Rue’s condition
of mind as she sped down the winding hills and across the causeway,
until the bridge was reached, and then she paused, and leaning far over
the railing looked wistfully down into the depths below, as if that
watery bed would be most grateful to her. Suicide was something of which
Mrs. La Rue had thought more than once. It was the phantom which at
times haunted her day and night, and now it looked over her shoulder and
whispered:

“Why not end it now and forever? Better to die than live to ruin that
young life, and know yourself loathed and despised by the creature you
love best. Sometime in your fits of conscientiousness you will tell, as
you were tempted to do just now, and then——”

Mrs. La Rue gave a long, gasping shudder as she thought, “What then?”
and leaned still farther over the parapet beneath which the waters of
the Chicopee were flowing so sluggishly.

“Yes, better die before I am left to tell and see the love in Margery’s
face turn to bitter hatred. Oh, Margery, my child. Mine, by all that is
sacred! I cannot die and go away from her forever, for if there be a
hereafter, as she believes, we should never meet again. Her destiny
would be Heaven, and mine blackness and darkness of despair, where the
worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched! She read me that last
night, little dreaming that I carry about with me the worm which dieth
not, and have carried it so many years, and oh, how it does gnaw and
gnaw at times, until I am tempted to shriek out the dreadful thing. Oh,
God, forgive me, and help me to hold my tongue, and keep the love of
Margery.”

She had drawn back from the railing by this time and, gathering her
shawl around her, she started for home, where she found Margery in the
reception-room alone, busily engaged on a dark-blue silk, which Anna
Ferguson had deigned to give her to make, and for which she was in a
hurry. She had been there that morning to see about it, and had found a
great deal of fault with some trimming which she had ordered herself,
and had insisted that the dress must be finished by twelve o’clock, as
she was going with Major Lord Rossiter to West Merrivale to see a
base-ball match on the Common.

“The match does not come off until four,” Margery said, “and if you can
give me till half-past two I shall be so glad.”

But Miss Anna was decided; she must have it at twelve, or not at all,
and when Margery asked if she would send for it, as the girl who usually
took parcels home was sick, she answered promptly;

“No, it is not my business to do that.”

And Margery bore the girl’s insolence quietly, and promised that the
dress should be done, and put aside Mrs. Col. Markham’s work to do it,
because she knew Mrs. Markham was a lady and would not insult her if she
chanced to be disappointed. But she felt the ill-bred girl’s
impertinence keenly, and her cheeks were unusually red, and her lips
very white, when her mother entered the room, and, bending over her,
kissed her with a great, glad tenderness as we kiss one restored to us
from the gates of death.

“You look tired and worried, _ma petite_,” she said, “and you are
working so fast. I thought that dress was not to be finished till
to-morrow.”

“Nor was it,” Margery answered, “but Miss Ferguson has been here and
insists upon having it at twelve, and she was so overbearing, and found
so much fault, and made me feel so keenly that I was only her
dressmaker, that I am a little upset, even though I know she is not
worth a moment’s disquietude.”

“Poor Margery! It is to the caprices of such people as she that you are
subjected because you are poor,” Mrs. La Rue said, caressing the golden
head bent so low over Anna’s navy-blue, on the sleeve of which a great
tear came near falling. “You ought to be rich, like Miss Hetherton. You
would be happier in her place, would you not, my child?”

“No, mother,” and Margery’s beautiful blue eyes looked frankly up into
her mother’s face. “I should like money, of course, but I am very happy
as I am except when people like Anna insult me and try to make me feel
the immeasurable distance there is between themselves and a dressmaker.
I like my profession, for it is as much one as that of the artist or
musician, and if I were rich as Queenie I do believe I should still make
dresses for the love of it. So, mother mine, don’t bother about me. I am
very happy—happier far, just now, than Queenie, who, though she may have
riches in abundance, has no mother to love her, and care for her, and
pet her, as I have.”

“Oh, Margery, child, you do love me, then you are glad I am your mother,
unlike you as I am?” Mrs. La Rue cried in a voice which was like a sob
of pain, and made Margery look wonderingly at her, as she said:

“Why, mother, how strangely you act this morning. Of course I am glad
you are my mother—the dearest and kindest a girl ever had. I cannot
remember the time when you would not and did not sacrifice everything
for me, and why should I not love you?”

“You should, you ought,” Mrs. La Rue replied, “only you are so different
from me that sometimes when I think how refined and lady-like you are,
and then remember what I am—an uneducated peasant woman—I feel that I am
an obstacle in your way, and that you must feel it, too, and wish you
were some one else—somebody like Miss Hetherton—but you don’t, Margery,
you don’t.”

“Of course I don’t,” Margery answered, laughingly, “for if I were Miss
Hetherton, don’t you see, Anna would be my cousin, and that would be
worse than a hundred peasant women; so, little mother, don’t distress
yourself or bother me any more, for my Lady Anna must have her dress by
twelve, and it is nearly eleven now.”

Taking the girl’s lovely face between her hands Mrs. La Rue kissed it
fondly, and then left the room, while Margery wondered what had happened
to excite her so. Such moods, or states of mind, in her mother were not
unusual, and since coming to Merrivale they had been more frequent than
ever, so Margery was accustomed to them, and ascribed them to a
naturally morbid temperament, combined with a low, nervous state of
health.

“I wonder why she asks me so often if I love her and am happy? Maybe I
do not show her my affection enough. I am not demonstrative, like her;
there’s very little of the French gush in me. I am more like the cold
Americans, but I mean to do better and pet her more, poor, dear mother,
she is so fond and proud of me,” Margery thought, as she kept on with
her work, while her mother busied herself in the kitchen, preparing the
cup of nice hot tea and slice of cream toast which at twelve she carried
to her daughter, who could not stop for a regular meal.

The navy-blue was at a point now where no one could touch it but
herself, and she worked steadily on until after one, when Anna again
appeared, asking imperiously why the dress was not sent at twelve, as
she ordered.

“Because it was not done,” Margery replied, adding, “It is a great deal
of work to change all that trimming as you desired.”

“It ought not to have been made that way in the first place,” Anna
rejoined, and then continued, “I must have it by two at the latest, and
will you bring it yourself, so as to try it on me and see if it hangs
right?”

“Yes, I’ll bring it,” Margery said, and an hour later she was trudging
along Cottage Row with a bundle almost as large as herself, for the
dress had many plaitings, and puffs, and bows, and must not be crushed
by crowding into a small space.

But Margery did not feel one whit degraded or abased, even though she
met Mr. Beresford fade to face, and saw his surprise at the size of the
bundle. Mr. Beresford was the only man who had ever interested Margery
in the least, and she often wondered why she should feel her blood stir
a little more quickly when she saw him. He was so proud, and dignified,
and reserved, though always a gentleman and courteous to her, and now he
lifted his hat very politely, and, with a pleasant smile, passed on,
thinking to himself how beautiful the French girl was, and what a pity,
too, that she had not been born in the higher ranks of life, with such
people as the Rossiters, and Hethertons, and Beresfords.

Miss Anna was waiting impatiently, and all ready to step into her dress,
which fitted her perfectly, and was so becoming, and gave her so much
style that she condescended to be very gracious and familiar, and as she
looked at herself in the glass, she said:

“Why, _La Rue_, you are a brick; how lovely it is! I have not a word of
fault to find!”

“I am glad if it suits you. Good-afternoon, Miss Ferguson,” Margery
said, quietly, and then walked away, while Anna thought:

“If she were a grand duchess she could not be more airy. I wonder who
she thinks she is, any way? Queenie has just spoiled her with so much
attention, and she only a dressmaker!”

                             CHAPTER XXIX.
                         LETTERS FROM MENTONE.

Whether we are sorry or glad, time never stops for us, but the days
and nights go on and on, until at last we wonder that so long a period
has elapsed since the joy or sorrow came which marked a
never-to-be-forgotten point in our lives.

And so it was with Queenie; she could not be as wretched and
disconsolate always as she was during the first days of Phil’s absence.
She was of too light and buoyant a temperament for that, and after a
little she woke to the fact that life had still much happiness in store
for her, even though Phil could not share it with her. She had received
a few words from him written just before the steamer sailed—words which
made her cry as if her heart would break, but which were very precious
to her because of their assurance that whatever might befall the writer
she would always be his queen, his love, whose image was engraven on his
heart forever.

And Queenie had answered the note, for it was nothing more, and filled
four sheets with her passionate longings for the _naughty boy_, as she
called him, who was not satisfied to be her cousin, but must needs seek
to be her lover, and so had made her life miserable.

This letter was sent to Rome, for Phil was to take the overland route to
India and visit the Imperial City on the way. He had promised to write
from every point where he stopped, and so he did not seem so very far
away, and Queenie grew brighter and gayer, and consented to see Mr.
Beresford, whom she had persistently ignored, and after rating him
soundly for the part he had had in sending Phil away, she became very
gracious to him, for Phil had forgiven him, and she must do so, too, and
she rode with him one day after his fast horse, and was so bright, and
coquettish, and bewitching, that Mr. Beresford forgot himself, and in
lifting her from the carriage held her hand tighter in his than was at
all necessary. But Queenie withdrew it quickly, and with her usual
frankness, said:

“You are not to squeeze my hand that way, Mr. Beresford, or think
because I rode with you, that you are on _probation_, as you call it,
for you are not. I am not trying to reconsider, and never shall.”

This state of things was not very hopeful for Mr. Beresford, who,
nevertheless, drove away more in love than ever with the little lady of
Hetherton, who, after he was gone, went to her room, where she found on
her dressing-table a letter which Pierre had brought from the office
during her absence. It was a foreign letter, postmarked at Mentone,
France. Reinette’s first exclamation was:

“From the agent. Now I shall hear from Christine.”

This was the thing of all others which she had greatly desired, but now
that it seemed to be within her grasp, she waited and loitered a little,
and took off her hat, and shawl, and gloves, and laid them carefully
away, and picked a few dead leaves from a pot of geraniums in the
window, before breaking the seal. And even then she hesitated with a
strangely nervous feeling, as if from fear that the letter might contain
something she would be happier not to know—something her father would
have withheld from her, had he been there with her.

“But no,” she said at last, “how foolish I am. Christine was faithful to
my mother, and father pensioned her for it, as he ought to do, and those
vile, evil-minded Polignies thought there was harm in it. They did not
know my father, or what stuff the Hethertons are made of. So saying, she
opened the letter and read:

                                         “MENTONE, France, Oct. 18, 18—.

  “_To Miss Hetherton, of Merrivale_,

                                        _Worcester Co., Mass., U. S. A._

  “My employer, M. Albrech, is gone away for a few days, and told me to
  open his letters, and, if necessary, answer them for him. So when
  yours and Monsieur’s came, I opened and read; that is, read yours, but
  Monsieur’s was in English, and it took a long time for me to make out
  that it meant the same as yours, and asked information of one
  Christine Bodine, pensioner of M. Hetherton, deceased.”

“That was Mr. Beresford who sent him an English letter. What business
has _he_ to pry into my affairs?” Reinette exclaimed, and her cheeks
were scarlet, and her breath came hurriedly, and then seemed to cease
altogether, as she read on:

  “I could not remember any one by that name, but there is a certain
  _Madame Henri La Rue_, to whom, by reference to M. Albrech’s books, I
  find that moneys were paid regularly by Messrs. Polignie & Co., Paris,
  for a M. Hetherton, until last summer, when the entire principal was
  sent to Madame La Rue, at ‘Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard, Mass, U. S.
  A.,’ where it seems she is living, though whether she is the person
  you are wishing to find I do not know. Your billet to Christine Bodine
  I will keep until M. Albrech returns, and if he knows the woman he
  will forward it.

                         “Hoping my letter is satisfactory, I am
                                     “Your obedient servant,
                                                         “LOUIS ARNAUD.”

“Madame Henri La Rue, Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. U. S. A.,”
Reinette kept repeating to herself, while a feeling of terror took
possession of her, and made her for a moment powerless to move or reason
clearly. “Who is this Madame La Rue, and where have I seen her?” she
asked herself in a bewildered kind of way, and then at last it came to
her who Mrs. La Rue was, and where she had seen her.

“Margery’s mother! Christine Bodine! impossible!” she cried, reading
Louis Arnaud’s letter again and again, while her thoughts went backward,
and with lightning rapidity gathered up every incident connected with
Mrs. La Rue which had seemed strange to her, and made her dislike the
woman for her unwarrantable familiarity.

As distinctly as if it were but yesterday she recalled their first
meeting in Paris in Margery’s receiving-room, when Mrs. La Rue had
stared at her so, and seemed so strange and queer; and since then she
had so often offended with what appeared like over-gratitude for
kindness shown to Margery.

“And all the time when I was talking of my nurse and my desire to find
her, she knew she was Christine and made no sign,” Queenie said; “and
once she bade me stop searching for her, as finding her might bring more
pain than pleasure. What does she mean, and why does she not wish me to
know who she is? Was there anything wrong about her—No, no, no!” and
Reinette almost shrieked as she said the emphatic “no’s.” “Mother
trusted her; mother loved her. I have it in her own words written to
papa. ‘Christine is faithful and tender as if she were my mother,
instead of my maid; and if I should die, you must always be kind to her
for what she has been to me,’ she wrote, and that’s why he sent her the
money. But why has she never told me? What has she done? What is she?
Yes, she was right. It is more pain than pleasure to find her; but if
she had only told me who she was, it would have been such joy to know
she was Margery’s mother—my Margery still, thank God, for she has had no
part in this concealment. She has no suspicion that Christine Bodine and
her mother are one and the same.”

This mention of Margery helped Reinette, and the pain in her heart was
not quite so heavy, or her resentment toward Mrs. La Rue so great. She
was Margery’s mother, and whatever happened, Reinette would stand by the
girl whom she loved so much.

“Please, mademoiselle, have you heard the bell; it has rung three times,
and dinner is growing cold,” Pierre said, putting his head in at the
door; and then Reinette roused herself to find that it was getting dark,
for the November twilight was fast creeping into the room.

“Yes, Pierre, I know; I am not coming—I am not hungry. Tell them to
clear the table,” she said, abstractedly; and then, as Pierre looked
inquiringly at her she continued: “Pierre, come here, and shut the door,
and come close to me, so no one can hear. Pierre, I’ve found Christine
Bodine!”

“You have found her? Where?” Pierre said, looking wonderingly at his
young mistress, whose white face and excited manner puzzled and alarmed
him.

“Here, Pierre, in Merrivale. While I was searching for her across the
water she was here, not a mile away, and never told me. Pierre, Mrs. La
Rue is or was Christine Bodine!”

“_Mon Dieu_,” Pierre ejaculated, with a shrug of his shoulders and a
rapid movement of his hands, “Madame La Rue Christine Bodine! I am very
much, yes, I suppose I am very much astonished!”

But he was not. He had never shared Reinette’s implicit faith in
Christine, and he put things together rapidly, and to himself he
thought:

“Yes, madame is Christine. I am not surprised;” but to Reinette he said,
“Who told you? There must be some mistake, madame surely would never
have kept silent so long.”

“There _is_ no mistake. I can trust you, Pierre, and I begin to feel as
if you were the only one I can trust. Everything and everybody is
slipping away from me. This is the letter from the agent in Mentone, who
paid her the money for Messrs. Polignie in Paris. You know you were in
their office once with father and saw him give his check for twelve
hundred and fifty francs to be sent to her. Read the letter, Pierre, and
you will know all I do.”

She handed it to him, and striking a light he read it through, while
Reinette watched him narrowly to see what effect it had upon him. But
aside from frequent ejaculations of surprise he made no comment, and
just then the dinner-bell rang again, this time long and loud as if the
ringer were growing impatient.

“Oh, that dreadful bell,” Reinette exclaimed, putting her hands to her
ears to shut out the sound. “Will they never stop ringing it, or
understand that I am not coming? Go, Pierre, and tell them to clear the
table away; tell them I am sick and tired, and wish to be let alone;
tell them anything to keep them away from me. No body must come to-night
but you. Go quick, before they ring again, or Mrs. Jerry comes herself.
She must not know what we do.”

Thus entreated Pierre departed with the message to Mrs. Jerry, and then
went back to Reinette who sat with her hands clasped tightly together
and a look on her white face which puzzled him, for he did not know that
she was bravely fighting down a suspicion to harbor which would be to
dishonor her father in his grave.

“Pierre,” she said, lifting her dry, heavy eyes appealingly to him, and
speaking like a sick child which wants to be petted; “Pierre, I am
strangely shaken by this news, because I do not understand why Christine
should wish to hide her identity from me, when she knew how I wanted to
find her. It looks as if there was something which she wished to keep
from me—something wrong in her life after she left us—and was married to
M. La Rue. I had so much faith in and love for her, and now—oh, Pierre,
it makes me cold, and sick, and faint. Forget that I am a woman; try and
fancy me a little girl again, as I was when you first came to Chateau
des Fleurs, and take me up and carry me to the couch. I could not walk
there to save my life, for the strength has all gone from my body.”

Pierre had carried her in his arms many a time in the years gone by, and
now he took her up gently, and laying her upon the couch, brought a
pillow for her, and fixed it under her head, and covered her with her
shawl, and put fresh coal on the grate, for the November night was cold
and chill, and outside the first snow of the season was beginning to
fall.

“Now sit down by me, Pierre,” she continued “and rub my hands, they are
so numb and lifeless, and let me talk to you of the olden time, when we
lived in the country and were so very happy.”

“Yes, mademoiselle,” Pierre said sitting down beside her and rubbing and
chafing the limp white fingers which seemed to have no vitality in them.

“Pierre,” she began, “we were so happy when papa was alive; he was so
good. He was always kind to you, was he not?”

“Yes, always.”

“And he was good to everybody, Pierre?”

“Yes everybody.”

“And—and—you were with him in places where he would be under less
restraint than when with me, and you think he had as few faults as most
men, I am sure?”

“He had not a single fault,” Pierre said, emphatically, lying easily and
unhesitatingly, thinking the end justified the means.

He knew now that Reinette was wishing to be reassured of her father’s
truth and honor, and though he had but little faith that his late master
had possessed either of those virtues to an overwhelming degree, he
could not say so to the daughter; he would sooner tell her a hundred
lies, and take his chance of being forgiven by and by.

“Thank you, Pierre,” she said. “You make me so happy. I like to think of
father as a good, true, honest man; and I believe Christine was good.”

“Did the servants at Chateau des Fleurs ever mention her as other than a
nice woman?”

“They never mentioned her at all. I never heard her name except from you
and monsieur, and from him only twice—once in the office of Messrs.
Polignie, and once in Liverpool.”

“Yes, Pierre,” Reinette said, with a quick, gasping breath, “I am sure
Christine is a good woman. My mother trusted her and bade father be kind
to her always. I have it in a letter written before she died, and when
Christine was with her. Mrs. La Rue is a good woman.”

She kept asserting this as if she feared Pierre might doubt the fact,
but if he did, he gave no sign, and merely replied:

“She must be good to be the mother of Miss Margery.”

“Yes, Pierre,” and Reinette roused herself up, and pushing her heavy
hair back from her face, said, joyfully: “I see it now; I understand why
she has not told me. She did not wish Margery or me to know that she
once served in the capacity of my nurse, lest she should feel
humiliated, and I, with my abominable pride, might think less of her;
that is it, I am sure.”

“Unquestionably,” Pierre said, ready to assent to anything his young
mistress might suggest, no matter how absurd.

“And, Pierre,” she continued, “I shall, of course, tell Mrs. La Rue that
I know who she is, but it is not necessary that all the world should
know. We need tell no one else.”

“No, mademoiselle; but what of Monsieur Beresford? He wrote to M.
Albrech, too; he will get an answer; he will know.”

“Of course,” Queenie said, impatiently. “But I can trust him. I shall
tell him to keep silent; and now leave me, and do not let Mrs. Jerry, or
any one, come near me. I am tired, and shall soon retire.”

So Pierre left her alone with her thoughts, which kept her awake the
most of the night, and the next morning found her suffering with one of
her head-aches, and unable to leave her bed. It was a stormy November
day, and the wind blew in gusts over the hill, and drove before it
clouds of snow, which was drifting down from the gray sky in great white
feathery masses, but bad as was the day, it did not prevent Mr.
Beresford from riding over to Hetherton Place, where he was met by
Pierre with the message that Miss Hetherton had the headache, and could
not see him. Mr. Beresford seemed disappointed, and was about turning
away from the door, when he said, as if it had just occurred to him:

“By the way, do you know if Miss Hetherton received any letters from
France yesterday?”

“She did receive one,” Pierre said, looking straight at the lawyer, and
feeling sure that he, too, had heard from Mentone, and knew the secret
of Christine Bodine.

And he was right, for the same mail which brought the letter to Reinette
had also in it one for Mr. Beresford from Mentone. It was a curious
compound of English and French, which took Mr. Beresford nearly two
hours to decipher. But he managed it at last with the help of grammar
and dictionary, and had a tolerably accurate knowledge of its contents,
which surprised and confounded him almost as much as Queenie’s letter
had confounded her. But in his letter were a few words, or rather
insinuations, which were omitted in Queenie’s and which affected him
more than all the rest, and threw a flood of light upon Mrs. La Rue’s
reason for keeping her identity with Christine Bodine a secret from
Reinette. Did Queenie know what he knew or suspected, Mr. Beresford
wondered, and if so, how did she take it? What would she do? A burning,
intense desire seized the usually calm, sober lawyer to have these
questions answered. He must see Reinette and judge from her face how
much she knew, and so he went to Hetherton Place. But Queenie would not
see him. She was sick, and she had received a letter from France. So
much he learned, and he rode back to his office, where, for the
remainder of the day, he seemed in a most abstracted frame of mind,
paying but little attention to his clients, who had never seen him so
absent-minded and grave before, and wondered of what he was thinking.
Not of them and their business, but of Reinette and the change her
coming to Merrivale had made in his hitherto quiet life. How she had
turned everything upside down. It was like a romance whose pages he was
reading, and now a fresh leaf had been turned which he wished to
decipher, and since he could not see Reinette he must seek help in
another quarter, and he, who had always been noted for minding his own
business better than any man in Merrivale, waited impatiently for
evening, when he meant to begin the new chapter.

                              CHAPTER XXX.
                        TRYING TO READ THE PAGE.

The night set in dark and stormy even for November and the wind howled
dismally through the tall elms which grew upon the common, while both
sleet and rain were falling pitilessly, when Mr. Beresford left his
office, equipped for an evening call. He was going to see Margery La
Rue, whom he found alone, as her mother had retired to her room with a
toothache and swollen face. Margery let him in herself, and looked fully
the surprise she felt when she saw who her visitor was. It was not so
much that he should come that night as that he should come at all which
astonished the young girl, who, with a woman’s intuition, had read the
proud man pretty accurately, and guessed that persons like her, whose
bread was earned by their own hands, had not much attraction for him.
But it was his early training, which was at fault, and not the real
heart of the man himself. His mother had seldom done so much for herself
as to arrange her own hair, and when her immense fortune slipped away
from her, and left her comparatively poor, and compelled her sons, two
as noble boys as ever called a woman mother, to choose professions and
care for themselves, she could not bear the change, and with a feeling
that she would rather die than live and work, she died, and very few
mourned for her. With such a mother and a long line of ancestry on her
side, as proud and exclusive as herself, it is not strange that Mr.
Beresford should have imbibed some notions not altogether consistent
with democratic institutions. He thought a great deal of family and
blood, and though he was always polite and courteous to Margery when
they met, he had unconsciously made her feel the gulf between them, and
she had good cause to gaze on him wonderingly as she opened the door,
and held it open a moment as if expecting him to give her some message
from Queenie, as he had done when Phil went away. Laughing
good-humoredly as he stepped past her into the hall, he said:

“I am coming in, you see, though I do not wonder that a call on such a
wild night as this surprises you. But it is the weather which brings me
here. I believe I have had the blues or something to-day, and need to
talk to some one, and as Phil is gone, and Reinette is sick, I have come
to call on you. I hope I am not unwelcome.”

He was talking rather strangely, and not at all in a strain
complimentary to Margery, who, nevertheless, passed it off pleasantly,
and said, with her pretty accent, which struck Mr. Beresford with a
degree of newness.

“Thank you, Mr. Beresford; I surely ought to feel honored to be No. 3.
Let me see; you said that as Mr. Rossiter was gone, and Reinette sick,
you were reduced to the alternative of coming here to be rid of the
blues. Is that it? or have my French ears misinterpreted your English
meaning?”

“That is the way it sounded, I will admit,” Mr. Beresford replied, “but
I am a bungler anyway, so please consider that I have made you number
one, for really I have been intending to call for some time.”

He took the seat she offered him, and moved it a little more in front of
her, where he could look directly at her as she bent over her work,
which, with his permission, she had resumed, and which, as it was a
sacque for Miss Anna, must be finished as soon as possible.

How graceful every motion was, and how well her dress of black cashmere,
with soft lace ruffles at her throat and sleeves, became her, and how
very beautiful she was both in face and form, with her golden hair
rippling over her finely shaped head, her dazzling complexion, her
perfectly regular features, and, more than all, her large, clear, sunny
blue eyes, veiled by long, fringed lashes, and shaded by eyebrows so
heavy and black, that they seemed almost out of place with that hair of
golden hue. But they gave her a novel and _distingue_ look, and added to
her beauty, which, now that he was studying her, struck Mr. Beresford as
something remarkable, and made his eyes linger on the fair face with
more admiration even than curiosity. But the likeness he sought for was
not there, unless it were in the occasional toss of the head on one
side—the significant shrug of the shoulders, or gestures of the
hands—and something in the tone of the voice when it grew very earnest
as she talked to him of Reinette, who was not like her in the least. In
feature and complexion, Margery was the handsomer of the two. Mr.
Beresford confessed that to himself with a kind of jealous pang, as if,
in some way, a wrong were done the dark-faced, dark-eyed Queenie, who,
put side by side with Margery La Rue, would, nevertheless, win every
time, and make people see only herself, with her wonderful sparkle, and
brightness, which threw everything else into the shade. Queenie was the
diamond, and Margery the pearl, and they were not at all alike, and Mr.
Beresford felt puzzled, and inclined to believe the agent in Mentone a
slanderer, especially after he had talked with Margery awhile, of her
friend.

“You have known Reinette a long time?” he said and she replied:

“Yes, a long time—ever since we were little girls—though it seems but
yesterday since she climbed the narrow, winding stairs up to that low
room, where I staid all day long with no company but the cat, and
nothing besides my playthings to amuse me, except to look down into the
narrow street below, the Rue St. Honore, and watch the carts, and
carriages, and people as they passed, and wonder when mother would come
home, and if she would bring me, as she sometimes did, a bon-bon, or a
white, tender _croissant_, which I liked so much better for my supper
than our dark, sour bread.”

“Yes,” Mr. Beresford said, leaning forward and listening eagerly to what
Margery was telling him of her early life, and wondering a little that
she should be so communicative.

“Most girls would try to conceal the fact that they had once known such
poverty,” he thought, but he did not know Margery La Rue, or guess that
it was in part her pride which made her talk as she was talking.

She was naturally reserved and reticent with regard to herself, but to
him, whose value of birth, and blood, and family connections she rightly
guessed, she would speak openly, and show him that it was something more
than a mere dressmaker—a sewing-woman—whom he was honoring with his
society, and in whom he was interested in spite of himself. She divined
that readily, by the kindling of his eyes when they met hers as she
talked, and by some of those subtle influences by which a woman knows
that the man she is talking with is entertained and pleased with herself
as well as with what she is saying.

So, when he said to her, with a kind of pity in his tone, “And you were
so desolate as that when Reinette found you?” she answered:

“Yes, more desolate than you can guess—you who have never known what
poverty means in a large city like Paris. But I was not unhappy,
either,” she added, quickly. “I had too much love and petting from my
mother for that. I was only lonely in her absence; for she worked at a
hair-dresser’s and was gone all day, and I kept the house and got the
meals for father till he died.”

“Your father—yes,” Mr. Beresford repeated. “What was he, what did he do,
and when did he die?”

He seemed very eager in his questionings, and mistaking his meaning
altogether, Margery’s cheeks flushed, but her voice was steady and clear
as she replied:

“I do not know that he did anything. I think it is a fashion in France
more than here for the women to work and the men to take their ease. At
all events, father had no regular occupation that I know of. Sometimes
he acted as guide to strangers, for he could speak a little English, and
sometimes he was employed for a few days as waiter at some of the Duval
restaurants, and once he took mother and me there to dine. That is the
white day of my life, as connected with him. Reinette heard of me from
old Lisette, the laundress, who lived on the floor below, and she came
up to our humble room in her scarlet cloak and hood trimmed with ermine,
and filled it with glory at once. You know what a halo of brightness
seems to encircle her, and affect everything around her. And how she did
sparkle and glow, and light up the whole room, as she sat there in that
hard wooden chair with me standing awkwardly by, in my coarse
high-necked working apron, with broom in hand, and gazing at her as if
she had been a being from another sphere.”

How rapid and excitedly she talked, gesticulating with her hands, which
were as small and white as those of any lady, and how large and bright
her blue eyes grew, as she described that first interview with Reinette
so vividly that Mr. Beresford could see the low room, far up the winding
stairs, the humble furniture, the bare floor, the smoldering fire on the
hearth, the wooden chair, the dark-eyed little girl in scarlet and
ermine who sat there with the captured cat in her lap, talking to
another child quite as beautiful as herself, though of another type of
beauty, and clad in the coarse garments of the poor. He could see it all
so plainly, and forgetting for a time why he was there, he listened
still more intently, while Margery went on to tell him of the Champs
d’Elysees, where she wore the scarlet cloak and played she was Mr.
Hetherton’s little girl, while Queenie sat demurely at her side, clad in
homely garments, and making believe that she was Margery La Rue, whose
home was up the winding stairs in the Rue St. Honore.

“I think that one act bound me to her forever,” Margery said, “though it
was the beginning of many make-believes and many deeds of kindness, for
through Queenie’s influence her father paid my expenses in part at the
English school which she attended, and where I learned to speak your
language and all I know besides, and after that she stood my fast friend
in everything and treated me more like a sister than an inferior, as I
am, by birth and social position. I think her love has never failed me
since the day she first came to me and brought the glorious sunlight
with her. So, do you wonder that I love her? I would lay down my life
for her, if need be—would sacrifice everything for her, and I sometimes
wish that I might have the chance to show how much I love her, and would
endure for her sake.”

Margery paused here, and with clasped hands, and eyes which had in them
a rapt, far-away look, seemed almost to see looming on the horizon not
far in the distance the something for which she longed, and which, when
it came, would test her as few women have ever been tested in their love
for another.

It was not possible that the dark shadow touched her now, although it
was so near, and yet she shivered a little and drew a long breath as she
at last came back to the present and turned her eyes upon Mr. Beresford,
who said to her:

“Did you even see Queenie’s father?—did you know him, I mean—you or your
mother?”

“No, neither of us,” Margery answered promptly. “I saw him once when
Queenie and I were riding in the Bois, and she made him come and speak
to me, but I did not like him much. He impressed me as one very proud
and haughty, who only endured me for Queenie’s sake. He was
fine-looking, though, and his manners were very elegant. Did you know
him, Mr. Beresford?”

“Scarcely at all, as I was a mere boy when he went away, but I have
heard much of him from the villagers; he was not very popular, I
imagine,” Mr. Beresford replied, and then the conversation drifted into
other channels, and they talked of Phil and Anna, and her engagement
with the major, which was generally understood, but nothing more was
said of Margery’s early life.

Mr. Beresford had not succeeded in reading the page just as he had
expected to read it, and was a good deal puzzled and perplexed when, at
rather a late hour, he said good-night to Margery, and went back to his
rooms at the hotel, with his mind full of what she had told him of her
life as connected with Reinette Hetherton, and full too with thoughts of
herself, and after he had retired to his bed, and a feeling of
drowsiness began to steal over him, there came to him another face than
Queenie’s—a fairer face, with golden hair and eyes of blue—and in his
troubled dreams the face hid Queenie’s from him, and a voice with more
of a foreign accent than Queenie’s was sounding in his ears.

It was very late when he awoke, with a confused vision of black eyes and
blue eyes dancing before him, and hastily dressing himself and
swallowing his breakfast, he started for his office, where to his
surprise he found Reinette Hetherton waiting for him.

                             CHAPTER XXXI.
                             THE INTERVIEW.

Reinette had thought and thought till her head seemed bursting with the
effort to solve the mystery of her nurse’s silence. Had she done
anything that she was ashamed to tell, and if so what was it, and did it
concern any one but herself?

“No, I will not believe it,” she said more than once, with a striking
out of her hand as if thrusting something aside. “I will not believe it.
There is some good reason for her conduct which she can give me, and I
am going to her to know the truth, but the world will not be as
charitable as I and will say bad things of her, no doubt. So to the
world she must remain Mrs. La Rue, and nobody will ever know that she is
Christine, except Mr. Beresford, who, of course, knows it now, for Louis
Arnaud has written to him, no doubt. But I can trust him, and I shall
ask him to keep the knowledge to himself.”

After this decision Reinette grew calmer; the violent throbbing in her
temples ceased, and she slept comparatively well that night. But though
the morning found her stronger and better, she felt nervous and
unstrung, and shrunk with a great dread from confronting Mrs. La Rue and
wringing her secret from her, if secret there were to wring.

“I am so hurt and disappointed,” she thought, as she dressed herself for
her calls. “I have loved Christine so much, and wanted so to find her,
and now she is this woman whom, for some unaccountable reason, I never
liked, though she is Margery’s mother and greatly superior to her class.
There surely is something wrong and I am going to find it out.”

The waiting for Mr. Beresford seemed a long time to the excited girl,
though in reality it was not more than ten minutes from the time she
entered the office before she was closeted with the lawyer in his
private room, where he received his clients who came to him on special
business. And Reinette’s was very special, or at least very private, and
when the door was closed she plunged into it at once, by saying:

“Mr. Beresford, you have written to Monsieur Albrech, in Mentone, and
asked about Christine Bodine.”

She did not put it interrogatively, but as an assertion, and blushing
guiltily, the lawyer replied:

“Yes, I did write to him, asking information of the woman’s whereabouts.
You were so anxious to find her, you know.”

“Hush!” Queenie said, pouring the full scorn of her blazing eyes upon
him. “Do not try to excuse yourself in that way. It was curiosity rather
than a desire to serve me which prompted you to write, and you have had
your reward. Louis Arnaud, Monsieur Albrech’s clerk, has answered your
letter.”

“Yes, he has,” Mr. Beresford replied, and Reinette continued:

“I know it. I have one from him, too. Here it is, and I will read it to
you.”

She drew the letter from her pocket, and read it through in a clear,
steady voice, as if its contents were just what she had expected.

“You are not surprised, of course,” she said, when she had finished. “He
told you that Christine was Mrs. La Rue. Where is the letter, and how
did you make it out?”

“It was written partly in English and partly in French, so I did pretty
well,” Mr. Beresford replied, and she continued:

“Did he write you anything more than he did me? I have a right to know
if there is any reason why she should have kept herself from me in this
manner. Show me the letter, Mr. Beresford.”

Mr. Beresford knew she would persist in her demand until something was
done to quiet her, and, going into the adjoining room where a fire was
burning in the grate, he took Louis Arnaud’s letter from his pocket and
threw it into the fire; then, making a feint of hunting through
pigeon-holes and on the table where piles of paper lay, he asked his
clerk, so loud that Reinette could distinctly hear him, if he had seen a
certain letter which he described. The clerk had not, but was finally
driven to admitting that he might have torn it up that morning with
other letters of no importance. He was reprimanded for his carelessness,
and then Mr. Beresford returned to Reinette, feeling like a hypocrite,
but thinking the end justified the means. But Queenie was not deceived,
and with a smile which had much bitterness in it, she said to him before
he could speak:

“Do not trouble yourself with more deception. Your clerk never destroyed
that letter, for you are not the man to leave it lying round. It is safe
somewhere, as you know, and you do not wish to show it to me. There was
something in it which you will not tell me. But no matter; I am going to
Christine, and she cannot keep from me why she has made no sign that she
was my old nurse, when she knew how much I wished to find her.”

“Possibly she feared you might not think as much of Margery, if you knew
she was your nurse’s daughter,” Mr. Beresford said, and Reinette
replied:

“I have thought of that, but she should have known me better than to
think anything could change my love for Margery. Perhaps she displeased
papa after mother died, and he dismissed her for it, but paid her money
all the same, because mother wished it. That would explain why father
never was willing to talk to me about her, and always said he did not
know where she was.”

“You used to question him of her, then?” Mr. Beresford said, and
Reinette answered:

“Yes; and he would tell me nothing. Evidently he did not like her, but I
knew how strong his prejudices were if once he took a dislike to one,
and so I attached no importance to them.”

“How long did she live with you as your nurse after your mother’s
death?” Mr. Beresford asked, and Reinette replied:

“I do not know; a year or so, I think, though all my knowledge of that
part of my life seems to be a blank; and where was Margery then?”

She put this question more to herself than to Mr. Beresford, who,
nevertheless, replied:

“Perhaps Christine was married unknown to your father, who, when he
found it out, was angry, as it took a valuable nurse from his child.”

“Yes, yes, thank you,” Reinette, said, eagerly. “It was something of
that nature, no doubt, and you lawyers are shrewd enough to see it,
while I might have groped in the dark forever. I am glad you thought of
that, and Mr. Beresford, you must tell no one what you heard from Louis
Arnaud. There are many suspicious people in the world who would say hard
things of Christine and—possibly—connect the trouble in some way
with—with—father—and I will not have his name coupled with hers in any
way. My father was a gentleman and a Hetherton.”

Mr. Beresford bowed an acquiescence to the fact that her father was a
gentleman and a Hetherton. And if there was any merit in being the
latter, she certainly was a very fair representative of it as she stood
up so proud and calm, and uttered her protest against her father’s name
being mixed with that of Christine Bodine.

“I am going there now,” she said, adjusting her shawl and drawing on her
gloves, “and when I see you again I shall know everything there is to
know of Christine Bodine.”

Mr. Beresford felt a little doubtful on that subject, but said nothing,
and going with her to her carriage helped her in, and then in a very
thoughtful mood returned to his office, wondering what would be the
result of that call on Christine Bodine.

                             CHAPTER XXXII.
                               CHRISTINE.

It was more than a toothache and swollen face which had ailed Mrs. La
Rue, and sent her to her room on that night when Mr. Beresford called
upon Margery. She had a toothache, it is true, and was suffering from
the effects of a severe cold, under cover of which she hid the terrible
pain which was making her sick with nervous apprehension lest, at last,
she was to be confronted by the girl whom she feared and shrank from
more than from all the world beside, unless it was Margery, her dearly
loved, beautiful child, who had brought her the letter which affected
her so strangely. It had been forwarded from Oak Bluffs, and postmarked
originally at Mentone, and it read as follows:

  “MADAME LA RUE.—Inclosed find a note from Miss Hetherton, who has
  written asking your whereabouts and that this might be forwarded to
  you. In my absence, my clerk, Louis Arnaud, took charge of my business
  letters, and, it seems, answered the young lady, telling her your
  address. Had I been home this would not have occurred, but it cannot
  now be helped. Hoping no great harm will come of it, I am

                                           “Your ob’t servant,
                                                           “M. ALBRECH.”

This letter Margery had taken from the office, and wondered in a vague
kind of way what it contained, and why M. Albrech had written to her
mother again, when she had supposed her business relations with him
finished. Since the time when Margery first learned to write, it had
been a distinctly understood thing that both she and her mother were to
respect each other’s correspondence, and Margery would as soon have
broken the seal of a letter directed to a stranger as to her mother,
consequently she had never known just what was in the letters which had
passed between Mrs. La Rue and M. Albrech, of Mentone. She had always
known since her father’s death that her mother had at stated times
received a certain amount of money from some source unknown to her; and
she knew, too, that latterly the annuity had ceased, because, as her
mother said, the person who paid it was dead. That the sum was very
small she had been made to believe, and her mother had told her once,
when she asked what became of it, that it was safely invested in stocks
and bonds in Paris, and was to be kept for her as a dowry when she was
married, or to be used before if absolutely necessary.

“But who gives it to you?” Margery had once inquired, and her mother had
replied:

“A gentleman in Paris, whose wife was very fond of me. I was her maid
first, and after she died took care of her child.”

And Margery, wholly unsuspicious, accepted this explanation as all there
was to tell, and received the impression somehow that the gentleman’s
name was Polignie, and never dreamed of the guilt, and sin, and terrible
remorse which haunted her mother so continually, and had made her grow
old so fast. Margery could remember her when she was bright and pretty,
with a sparkle in her dark eyes and a bloom upon her cheeks, which now
were sunken and pale, while her long, black hair was streaked with gray,
and within the last few months had been rapidly growing white. She had
brought the Mentone letter, and given it to her mother without so much
as looking at her, and thus she failed to see how white she was as she
took the letter and went to her room to read it alone.

“Probably it has something to do with my money,” she thought, seeking to
reassure herself as she broke the seal and opened the envelope from
which Queenie’s note dropped into her lap.

Picking it up she read the address: “Christine Bodine, care of M.
Albrech,” and recognizing the handwriting, which she had often seen on
notes sent to her daughter by Reinette, she gave a low, gasping cry,
while for a moment everything around her grew black, and she could
neither see nor hear for the great fear overmastering her.

“Tracked at last,” she whispered, as she tried to read what M. Albrech
had written, and could not for the blur before her eyes.

For months Mrs. La Rue’s remedy for nervousness had been morphine, which
she took in constantly increasing doses, and she had resort to it now,
and, swallowing half a grain, grew calm at last, and read her agent’s
letter; and then picking up the dainty note with Reinette’s monogram
upon the seal, kissed it passionately, and cried over it as if it had
been some living creature instead of a bit of perfumed paper, on which
these lines were written:

                                                       “HETHERTON PLACE,
                           “MERRIVALE, Worcester Co., Mass., U. S. A.

  “MY DEAR CHRISTINE:—Have you forgotten the little baby you used to
  bear in your arms years ago, in Paris and at Chateau des Fleurs?
  Little Queenie they called me, though my real name was Reinette, and I
  am the daughter of Mrs. Frederick Hetherton, who died in Rome, and to
  whom you were so kind. I have it in mother’s letter written to father,
  in which she tells him how good and true you were to her and bade him
  always be kind to you for her sake. And I think he tried to be, for I
  have ascertained that he set apart a certain amount of money for you,
  which was all very well, though I should have shown my gratitude in an
  altogether different way. I might have given you money if you needed
  it, but I should also have made you come home to us, and should have
  loved and petted you because you knew my mother, and were so good to
  her. And that is what I wish to do now.

  “Papa is dead, as you perhaps know. He died on the ship before we
  reached New York, and I am living alone at Hetherton Place, his old
  home, which is almost as lovely as Chateau des Fleurs, with a much
  finer view. Christine, did you know my mother was an American? She
  was, and her home was here in Merrivale, where my father found her and
  where I have a host of relatives on her side. But still I am very,
  very lonely, and I want you to come and live with me in America. I
  will try and make you so happy, and you will seem to bring me nearer
  to my mother, for you will tell me of her; what she did and what she
  said of me the few days she had me before she died. I am sure to love
  you because she did, and in her first letters to her mother and sister
  after she reached Paris she spoke of her good Christine, who was so
  much to her.

  “You see I am writing on the assumption that you have no other ties. I
  always think of you as my dear old nurse, Christine, whom I sometimes
  fancy I can remember. Did you not come to me once in the Bois when
  another nurse had charge of me, and kiss, and cry over me, and give me
  a quantity of bon-bons? Some such scene comes up to me from the misty
  past, and you had such bright black eyes and so much color in your
  cheeks, and looked so pretty. Was that you, and why did you not stay
  with me always? Write immediately and answer all these questions, and
  tell me you will come to your loving

                                                             “REINETTE.”

Oh, how the wretched woman writhed as she read this letter, with thuds
of pain beating in her heart, and her eyes dim with burning tears. It
was so kind, so affectionate in its tone, and so familiar too; so unlike
what Reinette’s manner toward her had been.

“Queenie, my darling, would you write to me thus if you knew?” she
moaned, as she rocked to and fro in her anguish, while at her work below
Margery sat singing a little song she had learned in the Tabernacle at
Oak Bluffs:

                     “There is rest for the weary,
                     There is rest for you.”

“Rest for the weary,” Mrs. La Rue repeated, as the clear, sweet tones
floated up to her. “And I am weary, oh! so weary; but there is no rest
for me, except in death, which some say is a long dreamless rest, and
that I can have so soon, for my friend is always near me,” and she
glanced toward the shelf where stood a vial of laudanum to which she had
resort when morphine did not avail to quiet her and bring forgetfulness.
“But I must see Margery once more,” she thought. “I must kiss her again,
and hear her call me mother.”

It was nearly time now for the evening meal, and summoning all her
strength and calmness, Mrs. La Rue went down stairs, and under cover of
the fast-increasing darkness, managed so well that Margery suspected
nothing, and attributed her mother’s pallor and weakness to the
neuralgia from which she was suffering.

“I am going to bed early to-night,” Mrs. La Rue said, when supper was
over, and the table cleared away. “I am feeling quite ill.”

Then Margery looked at her closely, and asked if it was anything more
than neuralgia which ailed her. Was there bad news in the letter?

“No—yes; but nothing I can now explain,” Mrs. La Rue replied; then going
up to her daughter, she kissed her twice, and said: “Good-night, my
darling. Do not speak to me when you come up to bed; I may be asleep.”

Margery kissed her back, with no thought of what was in the mind of the
miserable woman as she slowly climbed the stairs, and, going to her
room, shut the door, and taking down her _friend_, poured out what was
to give her forgetfulness and rest. Drop by drop the dark liquid fell
into the glass, until there were forty drops in all, and she held it to
the light, and looked at it, and smiled as she thought of the morrow,
when she would be deaf to Margery’s call, and deaf to Queenie’s
reproaches, if she should come, as she might do now at any time.

“But I shall be gone from it forever, and Margery will think it an
overdose taken accidentally to ease the pain. Yes, this is better than
the river; and yet I am so hot and feverish that the cold water would be
grateful to me, and this is just the night for such a deed, only Margery
then would know I meant it, and I must not lose her respect. I must
carry that with me at least. No, to sleep and never waken is the best.
So, Margery, darling, and Queenie, too, good-by!”

She raised the glass to her lips just as the door-bell rang a loud,
clanging peal, which made her start so violently that the glass dropped
from her trembling hand, and the poison was spilled on the floor.

It was Mr. Beresford who rang, and Christine heard him speaking to
Margery in the hall. The sound of their voices quieted her and for the
time turned her from her terrible resolve. “I will not die to-night; I
will wait,” she said as she cleared away all traces of the broken glass,
and then, undressing herself, went to bed, but not to sleep, for her
thoughts were busy with the past, when she was young and innocent, and
first entered the service of Margaret Hetherton. She could not remember
her father who died when she was two years old. Her mother had kept a
cheap French _pension_ in the suburbs of Paris, and Christine had often
assisted in waiting upon the guests who frequented the house. As she was
very pretty and bright and piquant she naturally attracted a good deal
of attention, and sometimes words were said to her which she knew were
insults, and which she repelled with scorn for she was then honest and
pure as a child, and would have shrunk with horror from the future had
it been shown to her. At the age of eighteen her mother died and she was
left alone without money or employment. It was then that she saw an
advertisement in the morning paper to the effect that a waiting-maid was
wanted by a young American lady, who could be seen at the Hotel Meurice
every day for a week between the hours of twelve and two. As the terms
offered were unusually liberal she resolved to apply for the situation,
notwithstanding that she had had no experience.

At the appointed hour she presented herself to Margaret, who was
reclining upon a white satin couch, while partly behind her Mr.
Hetherton stood with folded arms, and a critical look upon his face.

Accustomed as he was to the world, he saw at a glance that Christine
Bodine knew nothing of the habits of a fine lady, such as he meant his
wife to be, now that she was removed from the Fergusons, a thought of
whom made him shudder. Indeed, the girl, when questioned for references,
and the address of her last employer, acknowledged freely that she had
no references, and had never served as maid.

“But I can learn,” she said; “and I will serve madame so faithfully. I
should so like you to try me,” and she looked imploringly at Margaret,
who saw something in the girl which pleased her.

She was so young, and very pretty and plain in her dress, and looked so
good and trusty that her heart warmed toward her. References were
nothing to her, and turning to her husband she said, in a low tone:

“Oh, Frederick, I like her so much. I am sure she will suit. Let us take
her.”

But Frederick demurred, urging that she had no style, no appearance of a
maid.

“But she is good, I am sure, and I want her,” the young wife pleaded,
and Christine was retained, and entered upon her duties the next day.

How peaceful, and happy, and innocent those first few months spent in
Mrs. Hetherton’s service seemed to Christine now as she looked back upon
them, and how sweet, and kind, and patient her mistress had always been
with her, treating her more as an equal and a friend than as a servant,
and thereby frequently calling down upon herself sharp reproofs from her
husband, who did not approve of her familiarity with a maid. It showed
at once a low-born taste, he said, and he wished his wife to conquer all
such feelings, and, forgetting the past, remember that she was now Mrs.
Frederick Hetherton, of Paris. But Margaret could not forget the past,
or cease to pine for the dear ones at home, the plain, old-fashioned
mother, whose ways she knew were homespun in the extreme, and not at all
like the elegant manners of her proud husband, but who, nevertheless,
was her mother, for whom she cried every day of her life. Laying her
head on the lap of her faithful Christine she would sob out her
homesickness, and talk by the hour of Merrivale and its people, until
Christine knew every rock and crag, and winding brook in the pleasant
New England town, and knew pretty well what the Fergusons were, and how
they stood in Merrivale.

They were of mutual benefit to each other—this mistress and maid, for
while Christine anticipated every wish of Margaret, waiting upon her as
if she had been a duchess, and teaching her the French language as well
as the German, of which she had some knowledge. Margaret in turn taught
her a little English, and during the many weeks when she was alone and
her husband away with his friends, she gave her lessons in history, and
geography, and arithmetic, so that Christine, who was apt and bright,
became a much better scholar than was common to persons of her class,
and astonished her mistress with her rapid improvement. Even Mr.
Hetherton began to notice her at last and marvel at the change in her,
and when he was home he often found himself lingering longer in his
wife’s apartments when Christine was there, with her saucy smile, her
bright eyes, and her pretty way of saying things. Without any motive
except that she wished to please him because he was madame’s husband she
made herself necessary to him, and, carefully studying his wishes,
ministered to him with the alacrity of a slave, and when he offered her
money for extra services she refused to take it, and said that what she
did was done for love of him and madame, who trusted and clung to the
girl with a love which made the poor woman shiver with remorseful pain,
as she remembered it now, when the sins of the past were confronting her
so fearfully, and making her almost shriek aloud, as she recalled those
days in Rome, when the husband was seeking his own pleasure, while the
wife grew paler and thinner each day, and yet strove so hard to keep up,
by talking of the great happiness in store for her, and surprise for
him, if all went well with her, and she lived through the trial awaiting
her.

“Frederick is so fond of children, and he will be so happy and surprised
when he hears of it. I am glad I did not tell him,” she said, when at
last the waiting and suspense were over, and a little girl baby was
pillowed on her arm.

Christine could see that baby now, and feel the touch of its soft hands,
and see the white, worn face upon the pillow, and the great blue eyes
which followed her so wistfully and questioningly, and at last had in
them a look of terror and dread, as the days went by and no strength
came to the feeble limbs, or vitality to the nerves. She was dying, and
she knew it at last, and throwing herself into Christine’s arms, she
sobbed like a little child.

“It is hard to die,” she said, “when I am so young and have so much to
live for, now baby is born. And home is so far away, and mother, too,
and Frederick—where is he, Christine? He ought to be here, and I so sick
and lonely.”

Christine knew that very well, and her tears fell like rain upon the
golden head resting upon her bosom, while she tried to comfort the young
mother, who was so surely passing away.

“Monsieur must come soon,” she said; “and then madame will be better,
and we shall go back to Chateau des Fleurs and be so happy there.”

But Margaret knew better. She would never go to Chateau des Fleurs—never
see her husband again, and that grieved her the most, for all his
neglect and coldness had not killed her love, and she longed for him now
so much when she lay dying in Rome, with only her baby and Christine
with her—Christine, to whom she said “God bless you, and reward you
according to your kindness and faithfulness to me!”

Margaret had meant it for a blessing, but it was really a curse, and it
had followed Christine ever since, until now, when her sin was finding
her out, and making her writhe with anguish and fear.

“And yet I was kind to her,” she whispered; “and she died in my arms,
with her head upon my breast, and she kissed me twice upon my lips; one
was for me, she said, and one for the baby when she was old enough to
know. Ah, me, those kisses! how they burn like fire! and I am burning,
too—burning! Is there a hell, I wonder, and is it worse than the torment
I am enduring?”

Her mind was disordered, and she raved incoherently of Rome, and Chateau
des Fleurs; and Paris, and Margaret, and Reinette, until she was utterly
exhausted, and growing quiet, at last fell into a sleep so deep that she
did not hear Margery when she let Mr. Beresford out and came up to her
room.

“Poor mother, she is resting sweetly, and I hope will be better
to-morrow,” Margery said, as she bent over the sleeping woman, whose
face looked so white, and worn, and pinched.

The next morning, however, Mrs. La Rue did not attempt to get up. She
was too weak and sick, she said, and should keep her bed all day. “And
Margery,” she added, with quivering lip and a pleading tone, “don’t let
any one in here, will you, if they come asking for me? Not any one;
promise, Margery.”

“No, mother, no one shall disturb you,” Margery said, soothingly, “and
fortunately I have not much work on hand to-day, and can stay with you a
great deal. I must finish Miss Ferguson’s sacque, and that is all. Now
try to sleep again. I can’t have such a woeful-looking, pale-faced
little mother on my hands. I shall have to send her off and get another
one.”

She spoke playfully, but every word was a stab to the miserable woman,
who said again:

“Remember, Margery, nobody is to come up here.”

“No, mother, nobody. You are safer than the old bishop in his castle on
the Rhine, for the rats did reach him there, and not so much as a mouse
shall harm you here, so _au revoir_,” and with a kiss—the last—the very
last, she would ever give as she gave that, she ran down stairs just as
a carriage stopped at the gate and Reinette came rapidly up the walk.

                            CHAPTER XXXIII.
                   REINETTE’S INTERVIEW WITH MARGERY.

Reinette did not ring, but entered unannounced, like one who had but one
thought, one purpose, and was resolved to carry it out with as little
ceremony as possible. It was fortunate for all parties that this was
Margery’s dull season, and there were no girls there with prying eyes
and curious ears to listen, for Reinette was greatly excited now that
the moment drew near when she could confront Christine, and she plunged
at once into business by saying to Margery, “Where is your mother? I
have come to see her.”

“Mother is sick,” Margery replied; “she is very nervous and cannot see
any one. I am sorry, but you will have to wait. Maybe I can do as well,”
she continued, looking wonderingly at Queenie, who, utterly disregarding
what she said, had started for the stairs.

“No, you will not do as well. I must see her; it is very important and I
cannot wait,” Queenie said, still advancing toward the stairs, while
Margery put herself between them and her friend, whose strange conduct
surprised her so much.

“But you cannot see her. I promised no one should disturb her,” she said
again, and now she laid her hand on Queenie’s shoulder to detain her,
for Queenie’s foot was on the first stair and she looked resolute enough
to storm a fortress as she persisted in her determination to go up.

But not less resolute than her own was the face which confronted her as
Margery roused up and said in a voice Queenie had never heard from her
before: “Miss Hetherton! You astonish me. I tell you mother is sick and
cannot be disturbed. You must not go up.”

“And I tell you I _must_. I have important news from Mentone, which
concerns your mother and me, and I must see her.”

“What news?” Margery asked, thinking suddenly of the letter her mother
had received from Mentone the previous night, and experiencing a vague
feeling of fear and dread of some impending evil. “What news have you
heard which concerns my mother?” she repeated, looking steadily at
Reinette.

Reinette hesitated a moment, kept silent by something in Margery’s face,
but when she said for the third time, “Tell me what news you have
received from France,” she replied: “Margery, it shall never make any
difference between us, but your mother is Christine Bodine, whom I have
been trying to find.”

“My mother Christine Bodine! Impossible! She was Marie La Mille,”
Margery gasped, as she clutched Reinette’s shoulder with a grip which
was painful.

“I have it from her agent in Mentone, who has received money for her at
different times from Messrs. Polignie in Paris—money my father deposited
for her with them years ago. Now let me go! I _must_ see her!” Queenie
said, darting up the stairs, no longer restrained by Margery, who had
let her pass without further protest.

Clasping her hand to her head as if smitten with a blow, Margery
staggered back, and leaning against the wall for support, tried to think
what it all meant, while her mind traveled rapidly back over the past,
gathering up a thread here and there, until she had no doubt that what
Queenie had told her was true. Her mother _was_ Christine Bodine. But
why this concealment? What was she hiding? What had she done?

Margery’s first impulse was to hurry to her mother’s room, where there
was already the sound of excited voices, her mother’s and Queenie’s
blended together, as each strove to be heard, and once she caught her
own name, as if her mother were calling her to come.

Then she did start, and was half way up the stairs, when the door-bell
rang violently—a sharp, imperious ring, which she recognized as Anna
Ferguson’s. She was expecting that young lady, and knowing that however
fierce a storm might be blowing, she must keep it from the world, she
calmed herself with a tremendous effort, and opening the door to Anna,
listened patiently for several minutes, while the girl examined her
sacque and said it would do very well, only the price was too high.

“Ma never asked anything like that for a common sacque.”

“Very well. Pay me what you like,” Margery said, anxious to be rid of
her customer, who had asked, in her supercilious way:

“Isn’t that Queenie up stairs? And isn’t she talking pretty loud for a
well-bred person?”

“Oh, will she never go?” Margery thought, just as the bell pealed a
second time, and Grandma Ferguson came in, bringing a bundle almost as
large as herself, and entering at once into full details of what she
wished to have made, and how.

“I s’pose Anny is goin’ to be married,” she said, looking hard at her
granddaughter, “though she hain’t noticed me enough to tell me so, right
out; but everybody’s talkin’ it, and I thought I might as well have a
new silk gown. My _moiry antique_ is pretty well whipped out, and a nice
silk is allus handy. I got brown—a nice shade, I call it,” and she
unrolled a silk of excellent quality, but of a yellowish brown, which
would be very unbecoming to her.

“Oh, grandma, why didn’t you get black instead of that horrid
snuff-color?” Anna said, contemptuously, as she glanced at the silk, and
then went out, leaving the old lady a good deal crest-fallen, and a
little doubtful with regard to the dress she had lately thought so
pretty.

Margery soothed her as well as she could, and heard her suggestions, and
took her measure, and showed her some new fashion-plates, and did it all
with her ears turned to her mother’s room where the talk was still going
on, now low and earnest and almost pleading, and again so high and
excited, that grandma asked if that was not _Rennet’s_ voice and what
she was talking so loud for. Then Margery excused herself for a moment
and ran up stairs to her mother’s room, the door of which was ajar, and
that accounted for the distinctness with which the sound of voices was
borne to the parlor below.

Mrs. La Rue had risen from her bed and put on a dressing-gown which
Reinette was buttoning for her while she was trying to bind her long,
loose hair into a knot behind. Her face was white as ashes, and in her
eyes there was a hunted look, as of one pursued to the last extremity.
But when she saw Margery, their expression suddenly changed, and
thrusting out both hands, she cried: “Oh, Margery, go away; this is no
place for you.”

Advancing into the room and closing the door, Margery said in a low,
firm tone of voice: “Miss Hetherton, I don’t know what all this is
about, but mother is too weak and sick to be thus excited. Will you
leave her until a fitter time?”

“Don’t call me Miss Hetherton, as if you were angry at me,” Reinette
replied without looking up from buttoning Mrs. La Rue’s dressing-gown.
“I cannot go now. Your mother knew my mother and is going to tell me
about her. She is Christine Bodine.”

“Yes, I am Christine. God pity me,” the miserable woman exclaimed, and
over Margery’s face there swept a look of unutterable pain and
disappointment.

She had said to herself that this which Reinette had told her was true;
that her mother _was_ Christine, and still there had been a faint hope
that there might be some mistake; but there was none; her mother had
declared it herself, and with a low cry she turned away, saying as she
did so: “There are people in the parlor, and your voices are sometimes
louder than you suppose, and though they cannot understand you, they
will know you are excited and that there is trouble of some kind. Speak
lower; do. If this thing I hear be true we surely need not tell it to
the world; we can keep it to ourselves.”

“Yes, Margery, that is what I mean to do,” Queenie said, while Mrs. La
Rue exclaimed, with a ring of joy in her voice as if some unexpected
relief had come to her: “Yes, yes, we need not tell; we will not tell;
we will keep the secret forever.”

“But you must tell me all you know about my mother,” Queenie said, while
Margery went down stairs, for the bell was ringing again and Grandma
Ferguson was growing impatient of waiting to know if she should trim her
brown silk with velvet or fringe.

This time it was Mrs. Rossiter and her daughters, and into Margery’s
mind there flashed the thought, “Are all the Fergusons coming here
to-day, and what would they say if they knew who my mother was?” But
they did not know or dream of the exciting interview in the room above,
where Reinette questioned so rapidly and impatiently the woman who
almost crouched at her feet in her abasement and answered amid tears and
sobs. The Rossiters had merely come to ask when Miss La Rue could do
some work for them, and they left very soon taking grandma with them, to
the great relief of Margery, who locked the door upon them, determined
that no one else should enter until Reinette was gone and she knew
herself why the truth had been withheld from her.

Up stairs the talk was still going on, though the voices now were low
and quiet as if the storm was over: but would the interview never end?
would Reinette never leave her free to go to her mother herself and
demand an explanation? Slowly, as it seemed, the hour hands crept on
until it was twelve o’clock, and then at last a door opened and shut,
and Queenie came down the stairs, her eyes red with weeping, but with a
look of content upon her face which surprised Margery a little.

“She cannot be very angry with mother,” she thought and her heart began
to grow lighter as Queenie came up to her, and putting her arms around
her neck, said to her:

“Margie, it makes you seem nearer to me, now that I know your mother was
my nurse, and I love you more than ever. But how white you are, and your
hands are like lumps of ice. Are you sick?” she continued, as she looked
with alarm at Margery’s face, which was as white as ashes.

“Not sick, but a good deal upset with what I have heard,” Margery
replied; “but tell me,” she continued, “what does mother say? Why has
she never told you who she was?”

“She says it was for your sake; that she feared lest I might think less
of you if I knew you were the daughter of my former nurse,” Queenie
replied, and looking earnestly at her, Margery asked:

“And you believe this to be the only reason, don’t you?”

“No, I do not,” Queenie answered, promptly. “It is true in part, no
doubt, but there is something she did not tell me, and which I am
resolved to find out. But I did not tell her so, she seemed so scared—so
like a frightened child. Margery, I believe your mother is more than
half crazy.”

“Yes, yes,” and Margery caught eagerly at the suggestion. “You are
right; she is crazy. I can see it now, and that will account for much
which seems so strange. Oh, Queenie, be patient; be merciful. Remember,
she is my mother.”

“And my nurse,” Queenie rejoined. “She was with my mother when I was
born and when she died. I shall not wrong her; do not fear me,” and
Queenie’s lips touched Margery’s in token that through her no harm
should come to the poor woman who, in the chamber above, sat in a low
chair rocking to and fro, with a sickening dread of the moment when she
must stand face to face with Margery and meet the glance of those clear,
blue eyes which might read the story she had not told Reinette.

                             CHAPTER XXXIV.
                  REINETTE’s INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE.

When Reinette went up the stairs to Mrs. La Rue’s room, she had no
definite plan of action; indeed, she had no plan at all, except to
confront and confound the woman who had deceived her so long, and whom
she found sitting up in bed with so terrified a look on her face, that
she stood an instant on the threshold gazing at her ere she plunged
impetuously into the business which had brought her there. Secure in
Margery’s promise that no one should disturb her, Mrs. La Rue had grown
comparatively quiet, and was just falling off to sleep when she was
roused by the sound of carriage wheels stopping at the gate, and a
moment after she heard Reinette’s voice speaking earnestly to Margery,
and felt that the hour she had dreaded so long had come at last.
Reinette had heard from Mentone and had come for an explanation.

“Fool, that I did not end it all last night, when I had the nerve to do
it,” she said, as, starting up in bed, she listened until footsteps came
up the stairs, and Reinette Hetherton stood looking at her.

But not long; the girl was in too great haste to wait, and advancing to
the bedside she began: “Christine, you see I know you; I have found you
at last; traced you through Messrs. Polignie to your agent in Mentone,
whose clerk put me on your track; so, there can be no mistake. You are
Christine Bodine, my old nurse, whom I have so wished to find; and you
knew I wished it all the time, and did not tell me who you were. Why did
you treat me so, Christine? What is your excuse? You have one, of
course.”

She spoke so rapidly, pouring out question after question, that for a
minute Mrs. La Rue was stunned and answered nothing, but sat staring
blankly at her, like one in a dream. At last, however, her lips moved,
and she said, faintly: “Yes, I am Christine, and I don’t know why I
didn’t tell you.”

“You don’t know why you didn’t tell me? That is very strange,” Reinette
replied. “If there is nothing to conceal, if all your dealings with my
parents were honorable and upright, I see no reason for hiding from me
the fact that you were once my nurse. Christine, I did not come to
quarrel with you,” and Reinette’s voice softened a little. “I have loved
you too much for that, but I have come to hear about my mother. You were
with her when she died. You nursed me when I was a baby. You know what
mother said to me and of me. She loved you, Christine, and trusted you.
I have it in a letter written to my father before she died, when he was
away in Russia or Austria. And that is why he paid you money, was it
not, Christine?”

She was looking fixedly at the woman on whose white face blood-red spots
were beginning to show, and who answered falteringly:

“Yes, that is why he gave me the money. Oh, Reinette, leave me; go away;
don’t try to unearth the past. There are things you should not
know—things I cannot tell. God help me. I wish I had died before I ever
saw your face.”

She looked so pale and death-like that Reinette bent anxiously over her,
and bringing the camphor bathed her forehead, and held it to her
nostrils until she was better, and raising herself from the pillows upon
which she had fallen, she said:

“I cannot lie here. I feel that I am smothering. I must get up, while I
talk to you, but oh, you’ll be so sorry. You’ll wish you had never come.
Bring me my wrapper there on the chair, and my woolen shawl, for I am
shivering with cold.”

Her teeth were chattering, and her lips were blue and pinched as Queenie
brought the wrapper and helped her put it on, kneeling on the floor to
button it herself, and occasionally speaking soothingly to her, though
her own heart was beating rapidly with a dread of what she might hear.
Then it was that Margery appeared on the scene, and by suggesting that
no one but themselves need know what had so long been hidden, changed
Mrs. La Rue’s intentions altogether. For a few brief moments there had
been in her mind a resolve to make a clean breast of it, and to tell the
truth, and then when that was done, she would kill herself, and so
escape the storm sure to follow her revelations.

“Better die,” she thought, “than live to be questioned and suspected by
the Rossiters, and Fergusons, and everybody, as I should be if they knew
I was Christine.”

But when the idea was suggested that only Margery and Reinette need
know, she changed her mind, and in what she would now tell the latter,
there was to be a deep, dark gulf bridged over in silence.

“Help me to my chair. I am very, very weak,” she said to Reinette, when
Margery had gone.

Reinette complied with her request, and leading her to a chair placed
her gently in it, and drew the shawl closer around her. At this little
act of attention Christine broke down entirely, and throwing her arms
around Reinette, sobbed out:

“Oh, my darling, my baby whom I nursed. I have so longed to hold you in
my arms as I held you years ago. Reinette, Reinette, kiss
me—because—because—I am—Christine.”

It was not in Reinette’s nature to resist such an appeal, and she kissed
the poor trembling woman twice, and then drawing a chair to her side
spoke very softly to her, and said:

“Now tell me.”

“Tell you what, child? What do you wish most to know?” Christine asked,
and Reinette replied:

“About my mother. You are the first I have ever seen who knew her after
she was Mrs. Hetherton. I have heard what she was when a girl—the
sweetest, loveliest creature, they say, with eyes like the summer sky,
and a face so fair and pure, and I wish to hear from beginning to end
all you know about her, and when you saw her first, and where, and about
her death in Rome, when I was born, and only you there to care for
either of us.”

“Would you mind holding my hand while I tell you of my first days with
Mrs. Hetherton?” Christine said, and Reinette took the cold, clammy hand
between both of hers and rubbed and chafed it as tenderly as Margery
herself would have done.

She was beginning to feel very kindly toward this woman who had known
her mother; the insinuations in Messrs. Polignie’s letter were forgotten
for the time, and she saw before her only one who had cared for her when
an infant and had seen her mother die.

“Begin,” she said, “I am impatient to hear.”

And so Christine began, and told her of the advertisement for a waiting
maid, which she had answered in person; told her of the handsome rooms
at the Hotel Meurice, and of the beautiful young lady who was so kind to
her, and made her more a companion than a maid, notwithstanding that her
proud husband frequently protested against it and talked of bad taste,
which sometimes made madame cry.

“And did she tell you of Merrivale and her old home? Did you know she
was an American?” Queenie asked, and Mrs. La Rue replied:

“Yes, she told me all about her home and Merrivale, and I was familiar
with every rock, and hill, and tree, I think, especially the elms upon
the common, and the poplars near her home. She was so fond of Merrivale
and her friends, and used often to cry for the mother so far away.”

“Was she very homesick?” Reinette asked, and Mrs. La Rue answered her:

“At times, yes, when monsieur was away with his associates, or staid out
so late nights, as he sometimes did.”

Reinette’s breath came quickly for a moment, and her voice shook as she
asked, very low, as if afraid some one might hear:

“Was not father kind to her always?”

“If beautiful dresses and jewelry, and horses and carriages, and plenty
of money means kindness, then he was kind, for she had all these in
profusion, but what she wanted most she did not have, and that was her
husband’s society,” Mrs. La Rue said, and then Reinette drew back a
little haughtily and answered:

“Christine, you did not like my father. I see that in all you say, but
he was very dear to me, and I loved him so much! You were prejudiced
against him, but I insist upon your going on just the same and telling
me everything. Why did she not have his society? Where and how did he
pass his time, if not with her? He loved her, I am sure. You know he
did. You know he loved my mother.”

She kept asserting this, for there was an expression on Mrs. La Rue’s
face which she could not understand and which did not quite please her.

“He was very proud of her beauty, and in his way fond of her, but I do
not think it was in Monsieur Hetherton’s nature to love any one long.
Her habits did not suit him; his did not suit her; she breakfasted at
nine; he breakfasted at eleven in his room, and frequently dined out,
returning generally to see her dressed for the opera or concert, and
dictating about her toilet until we were both at our wits’ end. Her
tastes were too simple for him. He wished her to wear velvet and satin,
and diamonds and pearls, while she would have liked plain muslin gowns
and a quiet home in the country, with hens, and chickens, and pets. She
was very happy at Chateau des Fleurs, and would have been happier if
monsieur had staid more with her, but he was much in Paris, and
Switzerland, and Nice, and so we were alone a great deal, and she taught
me many things and was very kind to me.”

“But why did not my father stay with her more?” Reinette asked, and Mrs.
La Rue replied: “He was fond of travel, and hunting, and racing, and had
many gentlemen friends there, whose influence was not good, and he
complained that Chateau des Fleurs was lonely. If he only had a child—a
son—he could bear it, he said; but as it was, the place was unendurable,
and so he staid away weeks at a time, while your mother pined and
drooped like some fair lily which had neither water nor sunshine.”

“Oh, this is very dreadful,” Queenie said, with a choking sob. “I am
glad grandma will never know what you have told me. But go on and tell
me the rest. I insist upon knowing the whole.”

So Mrs. La Rue told of the weeks and weeks which her mistress passed
alone at Chateau des Fleurs, while Mr. Hetherton was seeking his
pleasure elsewhere; of his great desire for a son to bear his name; of
Mrs. Hetherton’s failing health and removal at last to Southern France,
and then, as the season advanced, to Rome; of the great joy which came
to her so unexpectedly and which she purposely kept from her husband,
wishing to surprise him when he joined her in Rome, as he promised to
do; of the weary weeks of waiting, hoping against hope, for he was
always coming in a few days at the most and never came; and then of a
girl baby’s birth sooner than it was expected, and the scene which
followed, when the young wife died, with her little girl clasped to her
bosom and her own head pillowed on Christine’s arm.

Here Christine stopped suddenly and covering her face with her hands
sobbed hysterically as she recalled that scene, while Reinette, too,
cried as she had never cried before for the dying mother in Rome, who
had held her babe to the very last and prayed that God would bless it
and have it in his keeping and make it a comfort and a joy to the
husband and father, who was far away, joining in a midnight revel where
wine, and cards, and women, such as Margaret Ferguson never knew, formed
a conspicuous part.

“Her baby was a great comfort to her,” Mrs. La Rue said, when she could
speak, “and she would have it where she could feel its little hands upon
her face, even after blindness came upon her, and she could no longer
see. The English physician had been in, and told me she probably would
not last the night through, and that I must have some one with me. But
she said, ‘No; Christine and baby are all I want,’ and when he was gone
she made me sit by her, while she talked, as she had done many a time,
of her home over the sea, of her sister, and her mother, to whom she
sent messages. I remember her very words. ‘Tell them,’ she said, ‘that I
have never ceased to love them, and to long for them with such longing
as only homesick creatures know, and if I have seemed neglectful, and
have not written as I ought it was because—I couldn’t. I can’t explain,
only I love them so much; and now if I could lay my head on mother’s
lap, as I did when I was a little girl, and it ached as it is aching
now, I should die more willingly. Dear old mother! poor old father! with
his hard, brown hands, which have worked so hard for me—God bless them,
and comfort them, when they hear I am dead!’”

“Oh, Christine!” Reinette sobbed, “grandma ought to know this—she and
Aunt Mary, too. They have never heard one word of her last days, for
father only wrote that she was dead, and did not even tell them of my
birth. I ought to tell my grandmother; she will be so glad to know.”

“No, no! oh, no! better not. You said you would not!” Christine
exclaimed in terror. “It would lead to so much talk—so many questions
about your father, and—Reinette, forgive me—but his record was not the
fairest. Even you, his daughter, would not like to see its blackest
pages.”

Reinette’s face was crimson with shame and resentment, and in her eye
was that peculiar gleam which so bewildered and confounded those on whom
it fell. The fair structure she had built about her father’s memory was
tottering to atoms, but she would struggle bravely to keep it together
as long as possible, and she replied:

“If there were pages so black in father’s life, do not show them to me,
lest I should say you told me falsely. He was my father, and I loved him
so dearly. He was kind to me always—and I will stand by him forever. But
you have not finished. I want to know just how mother died.”

So Christine went on and told of the long hours when the dying woman lay
with her baby clasped to her bosom, and her head pillowed on the strong
arm of her maid, who held her thus until the darkness was passed and the
early dawn of the mild spring morning began to creep into the room, when
Margaret roused a little, and said:

“It is almost over, Christine. I am going home to Jesus, whose arms
are around me so that I am not afraid. Tell them at home I was so
happy, and death had no terror for me. Tell them I seem to hear the
children singing as they used to sing in the old church in Merrivale,
and the summer wind blows in and out, and brings the perfume of the
pond lilies with it, and the river flows on and on amid the green
meadows—away—away—just as I am floating so quietly out upon the sea of