the avowal of age and infirmity, poverty and loneliness, that the fireside group affected her as a voice speaking in the silence might have done; a voice speaking piteously.
From the bergère and the bowl she looked up at the marble mantelpiece. Above it a gilt mirror, reaching to the cornice, reflected all the light of the room, and on it stood a tall gilt clock, slowly ticking, two candelabra and two glass vases filled with sprays of fading autumn roses. As she saw them Jill's heart stood still.
She could not trace, for the moment of distress and mystery, the memory that so affected her. Then it came sharply. They were the same roses as those on Marthe Ludérac's grave, and arranged, surely, by the same hand. It must have been Madame de Lamouderie who had placed them there. She must have known Marthe Ludérac; and been fond of her; and sorry for her. And upon this background of mystery and pity and fidelity, as the door opened and the old lady entered, Jill first saw her.
