Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 8, 2025
And in fact, at the sound of the voices, the door leading into the kitchen opened, and a young woman appeared. "Pardon," said Madelon, going forward; "we came here to inquire for Jeanne-Marie; but she she is dead, we hear."
She considered a moment, and then said "Don't you remember, ma petite? Your papa is dead, and you are not at the convent any more, and need not go back there unless you like. You are with me, Jeanne-Marie, at Le Trooz, and I will take care of you till you are well. Now you are not to talk any more." Madelon lay silent for a minute. "Yes, I remember," she said at last, slowly.
"Monsieur Horace, do you think we might stop for just a little while for half-an-hour at Le Trooz, to see Jeanne-Marie? She would not like me to go away without wishing her good-bye." "Of course we will. It was Jeanne-Marie who took care of you when you were ill, was it not? Tell me the whole story, Madelon. What made you run away from Liége?"
And so much apart did Jeanne-Marie keep from her neighbours, that the subject was soon half-forgotten, and Madelon's very existence seemed problematic, as she lay in the little upstairs room, and the woman who sheltered her, appeared to come and go about her business much the same as usual.
So to Jeanne-Marie it seemed the simplest thing in the world, that, having found Madelon in need of help, she should help her at the cost of any trouble to herself; that she should take in, and cherish this poor little stray girl without inquiry, without hope, or thought of reward.
"Besides, you know," she went on, speaking fast and eagerly, "I promised him Monsieur Horace, you know and I must keep it, I must keep my promise to Monsieur Horace, I must, I must!" "You hear?" said Jeanne-Marie, as Madelon fell back on the pillow again muttering to herself. "I hear," answered the doctor, "and I see that she is in a high fever, and it may go hard with her, poor child!
At Madelon, happy, successful, contented, Jeanne-Marie would not have looked a second time; but for Madelon, forsaken, shelterless, dependent on her, she would have been ready almost to lay down her life. In about half an hour, Jacques Monnier returned with the doctor.
Madelon, however, was already reviving, and when Jeanne-Marie went up to her again, she raised herself on the bed, resting on one elbow, and fixed her large eyes upon the woman, first with a look of blank unconsciousness, and then with a sudden light of terror in them, as of some wild hunted thing just caught by its pursuers.
"Papa is dead, and Monsieur Horace he is not here?" she cried, with startling eagerness. "No, no," said Jeanne-Marie, "no one is here but me." "Because you know," Madelon went on, "I cannot see him yet I cannot it would not do to see him, you know, till till ah! you do not know about that " She stopped suddenly, and Jeanne- Marie smoothed the pillow again with her rough, kindly hands.
"Soeur Lucie, and Soeur Françoise, and numbers of others." "Ah! yes; but I don't mean in the convent! any one out of the convent, I mean? Did I talk of Monsieur Horace?" "Sometimes," said Jeanne-Marie, counting her stitches composedly. "What did I say about him?" asked Madelon, anxiously. "Please will you tell me? I can't remember, you know."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking