"Pani! Pani!" she cried again, all the love and longing of months in her voice—"Pani, it is I, Jeanne come back to you. Oh, surely God would not let you die now!"
She was tearing away the wrappings. She found the face and kissed it with a passion of tenderness. It was cold, but not with the awful coldness of death. The lips murmured something. The hands took hold of her feebly.
"It is Jeanne," she cried again, "your own Jeanne, who loves you with all her heart and soul, Jeanne, whom the good God has sent back to you," and then the tears and kisses mingled in a rain on the poor old wrinkled face.
"Jeanne," Pani said in a quavering voice, in which there was no realizing joy. Her lifeless fingers touched the warm, young face, wet with tears. "Petite Jeanne!"
"Your own Jeanne come back to you. Oh, Pani, you are cold and there is no fire. And all this dreary time—but the good God has sent me back, and I shall stay always, always—"
She ran and opened the shutter. The traces of Pani's careful housekeeping were gone. Dust was everywhere, and even food was standing about as Wenonah had brought it in last night, while piles of furs and blankets were lying in a corner, waiting to be put up.
"Now we must have a fire," she began, cheerily; and, shivering with the chill herself, she stirred the embers and ashes about. There was no lack of fuel. In a moment the flames began a heartsome sound, and the scarlet rays went climbing and racing over the twigs. There was a fragrant warmth, a brightness, but it showed the wan, brown face, almost ashen color from paleness, and the lack-luster eyes.
"Pani!" Jeanne knelt before her and shook back the curls, smiled when she would fain have cried over the pitiful wreck, and at that moment she hated Louis Marsac more bitterly than ever. "Pani, dear, wake up. You have been asleep and dreamed bad dreams. Wake up, dear, my only love."
Some consciousness stirred vaguely. It was as if she made a great effort, and the pale lips moved, but no sound came from them. Still the eyes lost some of their vacancy, the brow showed lines of thought.
"Jeanne," she murmured again. "Petite Jeanne. Did some one take you away? Or was it a dream?"