"You go alone, mademoiselle?"
"Why not, dear goose?"
"Vous etes fatiguee. I would like to come with you, and carry your cloak and the umbrellas."
"You, indeed!" said Julie. "It would end, wouldn"t it, in my carrying you--besides the cloak and the umbrellas?"
Then she knelt down beside the child and took her in her arms.
"Do you love me, Therese?"
The child drew a long breath. With her little, twisted hands she stroked the beautiful hair so close to her.
"Do you, Therese?"
A kiss fell on Julie"s cheek.
"Ce soir, j"ai beaucoup prie la Sainte Vierge pour vous!" she said, in a timid and hurried whisper.
Julie made no immediate reply. She rose from her knees, her hand still clasped in that of the crippled girl.
"Did you put those pictures on my mantel-piece, Therese?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
The child hesitated.
"It does one good to look at them--n"est-ce pas?--when one is sad?"
"Why do you suppose I am sad?"
Therese was silent a moment; then she flung her little skeleton arms round Julie, and Julie felt her crying.
"Well, I won"t be sad any more," said Julie, comforting her. "When we"re all in Bruges together, you"ll see."
And smiling at the child, she tucked her into her white bed and left her.
Then from this exquisite and innocent affection she pa.s.sed back into the tumult of her own thoughts and plans. Through the restless night her parents were often in her mind. She was the child of revolt, and as she thought of the meeting before her she seemed to be but entering upon a heritage inevitable from the beginning. A sense of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, of pa.s.sionate enlargement, upheld her, as of a life coming to its fruit.
"Creil!"
A flashing vision of a station and its lights, and the Paris train rushed on through cold showers of sleet and driving wind, a return of winter in the heart of spring.
On they sped through the half-hour which still divided them from the Gare du Nord. Julie, in her thick veil, sat motionless in her corner.
She was not conscious of any particular agitation. Her mind was strained not to forget any of Warkworth"s directions. She was to drive across immediately to the Gare de Sceaux, in the Place Denfert-Rochereau, where he would meet her. They were to dine at an obscure inn near the station, and go down by the last train to the little town in the wooded valley of the Bievre, where they were to stay.
She had her luggage with her in the carriage. There would be no custom-house delays.
Ah, the lights of Paris beginning! She peered into the rain, conscious of a sort of home-coming joy. She loved the French world and the French sights and sounds--these tall, dingy houses of the _banlieue_, the dregs of a great architecture; the advertis.e.m.e.nts; the look of the streets.
The train slackened into the Nord Station. The blue-frocked porters crowded into the carriages.
"C"est tout, madame? Vous n"avez pas de grands bagages?"
"No, nothing. Find me a cab at once."
There was a great crowd outside. She hurried on as quickly as she could, revolving what was to be said if any acquaintance were to accost her. By great good luck, and by travelling second cla.s.s both in the train and on the boat, she had avoided meeting anybody she knew. But the Nord Station was crowded with English people, and she pushed her way through in a nervous terror.
"Miss Le Breton!"
She turned abruptly. In the white glare of the electric lights she did not at first recognize the man who had spoken to her. Then she drew back. Her heart beat wildly. For she had distinguished the face of Jacob Delafield.
He came forward to meet her as she pa.s.sed the barrier at the end of the platform, his aspect full of what seemed to her an extraordinary animation, significance, as though she were expected.
"Miss Le Breton! What an astonishing, what a fortunate meeting! I have a message for you from Evelyn."
"From Evelyn?" She echoed the words mechanically as she shook hands.
"Wait a moment," he said, leading her aside towards the waiting-room, while the crowd that was going to the _douane_ pa.s.sed them by. Then he turned to Julie"s porter.
"Attendez un instant."
The man sulkily shook his head, dropped Julie"s bag at their feet, and hurried off in search of a more lucrative job.
"I am going back to-night," added Delafield, hurriedly. "How strange that I should have met you, for I have very sad news for you! Lord Lackington had an attack this morning, from which he cannot recover. The doctors give him perhaps forty-eight hours. He has asked for you--urgently. The d.u.c.h.ess tells me so in a long telegram I had from her to-day. But she supposed you to be in Bruges. She has wired there. You will go back, will you not?"
"Go back?" said Julie, staring at him helplessly. "Go back to-night?"
"The evening train starts in little more than an hour. You would be just in time, I think, to see the old man alive."
She still looked at him in bewilderment, at the blue eyes under the heavily moulded brows, and the mouth with its imperative, and yet eager--or tremulous?--expression. She perceived that he hung upon her answer.
She drew her hand piteously across her eyes as though to shut out the crowds, the station, and the urgency of this personality beside her.
Despair was in her heart. How to consent? How to refuse?
"But my friends," she stammered--"the friends with whom I was going to stay--they will be alarmed."
"Could you not telegraph to them? They would understand, surely. The office is close by."
She let herself be hurried along, not knowing what to do. Delafield walked beside her. If she had been able to observe him, she must have been struck afresh by the pale intensity, the controlled agitation of his face.
"Is it really so serious?" she asked, pausing a moment, as though in resistance.
"It is the end. Of that there can be no question. You have touched his heart very deeply. He longs to see her, Evelyn says. And his daughter and granddaughter are still abroad--Miss Moffatt, indeed, is ill at Florence with a touch of diphtheria. He is alone with his two sons.
You will go?"