She sank into a low chair, a smile of ineffable happiness irradiating her face. All the past was merely a dream, a nightmare—but—was she not only dreaming now?
“Lalanté, child, what’s the matter?”
It was her father’s voice—strained, tremulous. Seeing her like this but one conclusion forced itself upon him—that her mind had given way at last.
“The matter is that the news we heard wasn’t true. He will be here in a couple of days,” showing the letter.
“Oh, thank God for that,” said Le Sage fervently—and he was anything but what is called a pious man.
“What if he is coming back as he went, father?” said Lalanté, who could not forbear a spice of retaliatory mischief in her hour of restored happiness.
“Oh, I don’t care—so he comes back; no I don’t—not a damn. I can’t see my little girl looking as the has looked all this infernal time. And yet—” He broke off suddenly.
“Well he isn’t. He says he’s been successful beyond his wildest hopes.”
“Oh thank the Lord again,” said Le Sage, in a curiously constrained voice. “Does he give particulars?”
“No. Bother particulars. The great thing is he’s coming at all—isn’t it?”