helplessly, to the other woman. I was only twelve when the other came. But I knew what was happening.'
'Who was she? Do you remember her? Is she still alive?'
'Do I remember her? I can see her now, as plainly as I see you—with her smiling face and little fur cap and collar up there on that great terrace you spoke of, above the cathedral, in Angoulême. It was so I first saw her; on a winter day, when I was walking with my father. Yes. She is still alive. Is it not strange, when they have been dead for so long? But she was not to blame,' said Marthe Ludérac. 'She was helpless, too.'
'But she was to blame!' said Jill indignantly. 'She took another woman's husband away from her.'
Again Marthe Ludérac paused and considered. 'She did not take him. He took her. He was full of charm and power. She was very young; the young wife, married from her convent, of an old man; our neighbour; a friend of my father's father. How can one blame her? I saw how she struggled and resisted. For a long year her resistance lasted. He struggled too. By nature he was a loyal man. I saw it all,' Marthe Ludérac repeated.
'And your mother—did she not see?'
'At first, nothing. It was her happiest year. Can you understand that? He was more loving to her through all that year than he had ever been. She was his refuge. I understood it well. It was because he was so full of
