But in this instance this was not so, for, as Alaine stopped before the door and looked in, she saw a brisk little figure stepping back and forth before the spinning-wheel. Her thread broke short with a snap as she saw who was arrived. “Nomme de Dieu!” she cried, turning pale and staring at Alaine as if she saw a ghost.
“Mathilde!” cried Alaine, holding out her hands. “Mathilde, and do you not know me?”
Then with a scream Mathilde darted toward her, kissed her on each cheek, pinched her, patted her, all the time exclaiming between tears and laughter.
“Michelle, and Papa Louis, and Gerard, where are they?” at last Alaine, recovering from the embraces, found voice to ask.
“I will call them. They do not know? Ciel! but this is a good day. I will not stop to question, though I am dying to know how it is that you come, and all of it.” She but stopped to drop a courtesy to the friends, whom Alaine named, and was off.
Familiar, yet unfamiliar, the place looked to Alaine. The little table still held the small black books; there was the big chair on its rollers; yonder the high-post bedsteads, yet the dim blue hangings had been exchanged for a soft yellow, with a delicate tracery of vine bordering them, and they were further finished by a knitted fringe. A coverlet of the same linen adorned the bed, and this, too, was embroidered. Two painted feather fans ornamented the mantel, and a hand-screen lay on the table near by. Throughout the room there was a dainty feminine touch visible which had not been so observable before. Alaine noticed, too, that one of the doors led to a room lately added. This she must see. There stood another high bed and a dressing-table decked with soft white draperies delicately embroidered.
She had not time to distinguish more, for a clatter of wooden shoes along the porch and a sound of voices scolding, protesting, laughing, proclaimed the coming of the Merciers. Michelle, in advance of the others, stopped short at sight of strangers, of Madam van der Deen and the sturdy Joachim; then she broke forth with a cry, “My child! My child! is it of her you bring me news? My little lost lamb?”
Alaine, half hidden by the curtains of the bed, sprang out. “Not lost, Michelle, dear Mère Michelle, but here, here! Look at me, see me, it is your own Alainette!”
Michelle turned to her husband for support “What shall I do? What shall I do? She has renounced her faith and her friends. She has become French,” and Michelle dropped upon a bench and covered her face with her hands.
Alaine knelt by her. “That she has not, Michelle. It was all a wicked lie meant to deceive you. I am still Alaine Mercier, your daughter and Papa Louis’s, if you will have it so. I have never returned to France. I have never become the wife of any one. I have never renounced my faith. Will you not welcome me again, Papa Louis and Gerard?”