be all right, only she had made them understand that she wanted to see Marise. The doctor had told her that she mustn't see any one, but she had become so agitated that he thought it best to humor her. "Only, of course, poor thing, she can't say a word that any one can understand. It's just an old woman's whim." Marise thought to herself that it might be more than an old woman's whim, and getting up at once went with Mlle. Hasparren into the room where Jeanne lay on the bed. The doctor was on one side; on the other was Isabelle, half frightened and half delighted with the excitement; a visit from gallant sergents de ville, and from the doctor all in one day!
Jeanne motioned them all out with her one arm, and only when the door had closed after them, did she beckon Marise to her. She did not try to speak now. She only looked at the girl, with a terrible concentration, and put her finger to her lips.
"Do you mean, Jeanne?" whispered Marise, her lips trembling, "that I am not to tell any one?"
Jeanne closed her eyes rapidly in assent.
"Oh, no, no, no," cried the poor child. "Of course not, never, never, never!"
But the old woman was not satisfied. She reached out for Marise's hand and drew her close, her eyes burning in her disfigured face. She struck her lips repeatedly with her fingers, as though, try as she might, she could not express the urgency of her command.
"No one—no one at all?" asked Marise, and then with a gasp, "Not even Papa?"
At this Jeanne's eyes leaped up to a hotter flame of intensity.
"No! no! no!" they cried to Marise. "No!"
Marise thought she understood, and hanging her head she said in a low shamed voice, "Oh, no, of course, I see."
With the words and the acceptance of their meaning which Jeanne's passionate eyes thrust upon her, Marise sank for many years into another plane of feeling and saw all the world in another perspective, very ugly and grim. That was
