"Ma tante ..." began Fernande gently.
"Who are you?" queried Madame la Marquise coldly, "and what do you want?"
Instinctively Fernande put out her arms: the strange query, the raucous timbre of the voice, struck with unexplainable terror into her heart—something, she thought, had happened during her absence—something awesome and terrific, which had unhinged this woman's cool and powerful brain.
"Who are you?" reiterated Denise de Mortain coldly.
"Why, ma tante," rejoined Fernande gently, "do you not know me? I am Fernande—I have just come home and found you here...."
"No, you are not Fernande," broke in Madame harshly—"not my niece, Fernande de Courson, the daughter of my dear, dear brother. You are a ghoul!" she cried excitedly, "a monster ... a hideous abortion ... a de Courson turned traitor.... I do not know you!"
Still Fernande did not realize the truth. She was convinced now that the excitement of the day and the weary watching throughout the evening had acted banefully on Denise de Mortain's brain. That she was unnerved there could be no doubt; there was an unnatural glow in her eyes, and the pallor of her cheeks was almost ghost-like. The young girl, genuinely alarmed, made a movement in the direction of the bell-pull. She and Annette could, at any rate, put Madame to bed ere a high fever brought on any further complications. But before she could reach the bell Madame had interposed calmly:
"I am neither ill nor insane," she said. "But this is my room, and I order you out of it. Go! Out of my sight—now—at once—do you hear?"
"Ma tante," protested Fernande, who, of a truth, felt so bewildered that she did not know what to think, what to say, what to make of this extraordinary, this appalling situation. "Something has unnerved you," she continued with calm dignity. "An you will not allow me to attend to you or to ring for Annette, I had best retire until you are in a fit condition to listen to what I have to say. But I warn you that it is urgent. Every second wasted in this unexplainable misunderstanding may mean danger ... if not worse ... to my father and to our friends."