“You saw the baroness draw her aside.”
“Y-yes.”
“By this time she knows it.”
“In Heaven’s name what do you mean?” asked Camille.
“I forgot; you are not aware of the calamity that has fallen upon our beloved Josephine; on the darling of the house.”
Camille turned cold with vague apprehension. But he contrived to stammer out, “No; tell me! for Heaven’s sake tell me.”
The doctor thus pressed revealed all in a very few words. “My poor friend,” said he solemnly, “her husband—is dead.”
CHAPTER XIV.
The baroness, as I have said, drew Josephine aside, and tried to break to her the sad news: but her own grief overcame her, and bursting into tears she bewailed the loss of her son. Josephine was greatly shocked. Death!—Raynal dead—her true, kind friend dead—her benefactor dead. She clung to her mother’s neck, and sobbed with her. Presently she withdrew her face and suddenly hid it in both her hands.