The girl paused, intimidated and almost frightened; she lost color as she stood, agitatedly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, and averting her eyes from the speaker. A thief caught in a felonious act would not have presented a more damning spectacle.
"Not only are we breaking up the household, Hedwig, but the house is going to other hands. The mistress and I will live in a hotel at Paris for some time, on account of my changed business relations. Consequently, we must dispense with your services. Madame will, on grand occasions, have a professional hair dresser in, and so—in a word, I must ask you to please yourself about returning to your own country, or seeking another situation in this one. You can refer to Madame for a character; for, I believe, you have always served her faithfully. But you need not look to her for a present, too. Here is a couple of hundred franc notes by way of notice. I wish you well wherever you go."
To the amazement of the speaker, instead of accepting the token of kindness, Hedwig suddenly put both hands behind her back, and stood confounded. Tears silently flowed down her cheeks; then, falling on her knees, she sobbed:
"Oh, master, I do not deserve this! Oh, master please forgive me! I am a very wicked girl!"
"What are you about?" he exclaimed, fearing that the unexpected boon had crazed her. "Do get up!"
"No, no; not before master forgives me!" moaned she.
"Oh, yes, yes—anything!" aiding her to rise.
But she continued weeping, and with the fluency in the illiterate when they have long brooded over a speech to relieve their mind, she said:
"You don't know what goes on, master! but I am forced to tell you now, since you are so good. I have always been in madame's service since we came out of Germany. I was devoted to her, and I knew her when I was at the Persepolitan Hotel, but devotion when women are concerned, becomes complicity.
"Madame never has cared for you, monsieur, for you and yours. She did not marry you for any liking, but because of spite. Not spite from your father having punished one of her precious family—they are all a bad lot—a witch's brood! faugh! but to Mademoiselle Daniels whom she feared would secure the prize. Madame carried on dreadful! When she went away last time, it is true she had a telegram from her uncle—but that was a happy accident. She was going to bolt anyway, and that came in so nicely! She was planning to elope with one of her conquests—the Viscount—"