Part 78 (2/2)
”Your father was a noted surgeon,” he continued, still holding the girl's hand.
”One of the best of his time,” said Henri, proudly.
”And your mother----”
”Is dead, monsieur.”
”Ah!”
The look of pain that pa.s.sed swiftly over M. Marot's face was reflected in an audible sigh.
”One of the best of women,” he went on, musingly,--”and you are the living image of your mother when I last saw her. Her name, too----”
”Oh, monsieur!” interrupted Andree, excitedly, ”you knew my mother, then?”
”So well, my dear girl, that I asked her to be my wife.”
”Ah!”
”Oh, monsieur!”
”Father!”
”That is the truth. It is the additional truth that my cousin, the doctor, got her.”
”My father was your cousin?” asked Lerouge. ”Why, I come right by the family resemblance, Jean!”
”Yes,” laughingly retorted the latter, ”and the family temper.”
”I was not aware that your mother again married,” observed M. Marot.
”Yes,--Monsieur Frederic Remy, the father of Andree, here,” said Henri. ”Alas! neither he nor my mother long survived the loss of their younger daughter.”
”Then there is yet another child?”
”Was,” replied the young man, sadly. ”For Louise, who was two years younger than Andree, disappeared one day----”
”Disappeared!”
”Yes; and has never been heard of to this date. She was scarcely three years old. Whether she wandered away or was stolen, is dead or living, we do not know. She was never seen again.”
”What a terrible blow! What a terrible blow!” murmured the elder Marot, thinking of the unhappy mother.
Mlle. Fouchette had reappeared a few moments before,--just in time to hear this family history. But she immediately returned to the kitchen, where she sank upon a low stool and bowed her face in her hands.
”Fouchette! Here, Fouchette!”
It was Jean's peremptory voice.
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