"I'll have a look at the mail while you get your things on," he suggested. Evidently he was still set on going at once to see Maman. Perhaps more than he admitted, he really didn't like her being in a convent.
Marise went to get her hat, and with it in her hand, went to join her father, standing by her mother's writing-desk in the alcove. He had an American newspaper in his hand, his fore-finger inserted in the wrapper.
He tore it open and stood looking at the headlines, while Marise put on her broad-brimmed sailor-hat and, tilting her head forward, slipped the rubber under her hair behind.
"All ready?" said Papa, and they set out.
How much less exciting everything was, now that Papa was home. But would it be—if he—but he never would! Who would tell him? Not Maman certainly, although Marise wished that poor Maman could have had a few days more without seeing Papa, to get over being excited so she could be surer of what she was saying. Not Jeanne. Not herself. Nobody else knew him well enough to tell him anything. If Maman could only get through to-day all right....
V
At the convent they waited in the usual bare, white-washed convent parlor with the shutters drawn, with the usual little rush-bottomed chairs, so light that the one Papa sat down on, groaned and creaked under his great weight. The usual black-walnut book-case displayed the usual Lives of the Saints. Through an open door they could look down a long, long, gray stone corridor, very empty, till they saw Sœur Ste. Lucie hurrying noiselessly down it towards them.
As she came near, Marise saw that her sweet face looked anxious and worried. She told them at once that Madame Allen had been taken very ill, that they had been up all night with her and had sent for the doctor early that morning.
Papa was startled by this unexpected news, and apparently never dreamed of what occurred to Marise at once, that this was just something they had made up to prevent anybody's talking to her. Marise thought it a good idea. She had hoped something like that could be arranged ... in case those horrible sergents de ville came back again. She was not alarmed by Sœur Ste. Lucie's worried face, because this was by no means the first time that she had observed how easy it was for people's faces to look anything they wished to have them.
Papa was asking rather sharply, "What is the matter? What did the doctor say? Is it the effect of nervous shock?"