The boy turned, startled, from his contemplation of the fire.
“—Too well,” finished Valentine, with a long breath.
He went white, then scarlet; then white again. “Madame—what do you mean?—I don’t understand. . . . You cannot mean——”
Unconsciously she was pressing her wet handkerchief into a ball. “M. de Trélan is your father, Roland.”
CHAPTER IX
THE RUBIES OF MIRABEL
(1)
“You really wish to do this, Madame?” asked Suzon Tessier, looking at the piece of embroidery she had just laid before the Duchesse.
“I must do something, Suzon, to pass the time till I start for the Temple. I cannot go out; Paris hurts me. And, sewing once more in this room, I shall feel I am back in the old days.”
“I only wish you were!” thought Suzon as she left the room—a wish Valentine would never have echoed. Though these days were nothing but linked hours of anguish and suspense, she would not have changed. Heaven lay between that time and this.