“I don't believe you know how brightly the sun is shining!” I say coaxingly. “Just come to the window, and see.”
Unwillingly enough, he lets himself be dragged across the room—unwillingly he looks out upon the glittering slopes and budding avenues beyond.
“Yes, yes—I see it,” he replies with an impatient sigh; “but the shadow of that fellow in the corridor would hide the brightest sun that ever shone! I am not a galley-slave, that I should walk about with a garde-chiourme behind me.”
“What do you mean, Monsieur Maurice?” I ask, startled by his unusual vehemence.
“I mean that I go free, petite—or not at all.”
“Then—then you will fall ill!” I falter, amid fast-gathering tears.
“No, no—not I, Gretchen. What can have put that idea into your wise little head?”
“It was papa, Monsieur Maurice ... he said you were”....
Then, thinking suddenly how pale and wasted he had become of late, I hesitated.
“He said I was—What?”