“O, cruel!”
“Would you kill him with your rashness? Do you not know he is suspected?”
“Fanchette!—my God! Tell him to keep away. You must—you can find means.”
“What is the good, when by your every look and act you betray him.”
“I will not—O, I will not! But to hear him so slandered and maligned—it is hard to suffer and to smile.”
“Do they slander him—are you sure?”
“What do you mean?”
“O, nothing!” She gave a little affected laugh. She was beginning to consider her part. “Only it does not do with us to idealise our fancies too much.”
She failed, for all her effort, to meet the inquisition of the true grief-stricken eyes.
“Fanchette!”