Part 43 (1/2)

”I have a ently--”a letter from him

Mademoiselle Jeanne allowed me to wait here for you until you came”

Silently, like a little shy mouse, Jeanne had slipped out of the room

Her pure love for Arhts, and her innate kindliness and refineested that brother and sister would wish to be alone At the door she had turned and met Armand's look That look had satisfied her; she felt that in it she had read the expression of his love, and to it she had responded with a glance that spoke of hope for a future e, Armand, with an impulse that refused to be checked, threw himself into his sister's arms The present, with all its sorrows, its remorse and its shaettable past, when Marguerite was ”little mother”--the soother, the co receptacle wherein he had been wont to pour the burden of his childish griefs, of his boyish escapades

Conscious that she could not know everything--not yet, at any rate--he gave himself over to the rapture of this pure embrace, the last time, mayhap, that those fond arms would close round him in unmixed tenderness, the last time that those fond lips would murmur words of affection and of comfort

To-morrow those same lips would, perhaps, curse the traitor, and the ser on the Judas

”Little ood to see you again”

”And I have brought you a ed ive you as soon as may be”

”You have seen him?” he asked

She nodded silently, unable to speak Not now, not when her nerves were strung to breaking pitch, would she trust herself to speak of that awful yesterday She groped in the folds of her gown and took the packet which Percy had given her for Armand It felt quite bulky in her hand

”There is quite a good deal there for you to read, dear,” she said

”Percy begged ive you this, and then to let you read it when you were alone”

She pressed the packet into his hand Are, nervous tenacity; the paper which he held in one hand see-iron

”I will slip away now,” she said, for strangely enough since Percy's ain conscious of that awful feeling of iciness round her heart, a sense of nuhts

”You willto smile ”When you have read, you ish to see her alone”

Gently she disengaged herself frorasp anddown at that paper which was scorching his fingers Only when her hand was on the latch did he see

”Little ht back to him and took both his wrists in her shtly bent forward

Thus she towered over hi his soul

”When shall I see you again, little mother?” he asked

”Read your letter, dear,” she replied, ”and when you have read it, if you care to is, Quai de la Ferraille, above the saddler's shop But if there is aught in it that you do not wish me to know, then do not come; I shall understand Good-bye, dear”

She took his head between her two cold hands, and as it was still bowed she placed a tender kiss, as of a long farewell, upon his hair

Then she went out of the room

CHAPTER xxxIV THE LETTER