“I have come to talk about the child. May I not come in? Are you busy?”
“With bread and cakes. We are not so poorly off if we have a bad name,” smiling with amusement. “Here is a chair, and a stool for the little one. She looks pale. Is she not well?”
“She has had a long journey. First across the ocean, then from Quebec in not the pleasantest of weather for such a tramp. But she has not been ill a day.”
Denys placed his arm over the child’s shoulder, and she leaned her arms on his knee.
Madame Renaud raised her eyebrows a trifle.
“You remember the daughter of Antoine Freneau?”
“Yes—a little. He took her to Canada and married her to some great person and she died in France. Poor thing! I wonder if she was happy?”
She, too, knew of the gossip that Denys had been very much in love with this girl, and she stole a little furtive glance; but the man’s face was not so ready with confessions. Much hard experience had settled the lines.
“Then the Count married again. He is in the King’s service at the palace. They sent the child over to her grandfather. I went to Canada for her.”
“And this is Renée Freneau’s child. Poor thing!”