"Yes. I was frightened."
"What did you do? Did you run away?"
"I don't know. I don't remember. I don't remember anything."
Such terror and anguish was there in the lovely girlish face, that Eva dared to ask no more.
"Forgive me," she stammered; "I ought not to have made you speak about it. Forgive me—Mademoiselle." She placed her hand timidly on the girl's arm. "Or may I call you 'Chérie'?"
CHAPTER IX
The mild September days swung past; the peaceful English atmosphere and the wholesome English food, added to the unobtrusive English kindness—which consists mainly in leaving people alone and pretending not to notice their existence—wrought gentle miracles on the three stricken creatures.
Not that Mireille found speech again, but Louise watched day by day with beating heart the return of the tender wild-rose colour to her child's thin cheeks, and saw the strange fixed expression of terror gradually fade out of her eyes.
Mireille never wept and never smiled; she seemed to wander in the shadow of life, mute, quiet, and at peace.