"Mary, I know you will laugh at me!"
"Why?" asked Mary, trembling.
"I love him!" replied Bertha.
A cry of pain had almost escaped from Mary's lips, but she smothered it.
"And I called to him 'au revoir!'" she whispered to herself. "God grant I may never, never see him again."
[XIII.]
A DISTANT COUSIN.
The day after the events we have just related,--that is to say, on the 7th of May, 1832,--a great dinner-party was given at the château de Vouillé, to celebrate the birthday of Madame la Comtesse de Vouillé, who had on that day completed her twenty-fourth year.
The company had just sat down to table, and at this table, among twenty-five other guests, was the prefect of Vienne and the mayor of Châtellerault, relations more or less distant of Madame de Vouillé.
The soup was just removed when a servant entered the dining-room, and said a few words in Monsieur de Vouillé's ear. Monsieur de Vouillé made the man repeat them twice. Then addressing his guests, he said:--