"No one shall take you back," said Jeanne-Marie, trying to soothe her. But she paid no heed.
"Indeed I can't go. Ah, Madame, you said you knew papa; have pity upon me! I promised him I would never be a nun. He died, you know, and sent me to the convent at Liége to be with Aunt Thérèse; but he made me promise before he died. I can't go back—I should die too. Ah, Madame, have pity on me!"
She was kneeling on the bed now, her hands clasped with her pitiful little imploring gesture. Jeanne-Marie came close to her, and smoothed back her hair caressingly with her rough work-a-day fingers.
"Soyez tranquille, mon enfant," she said, "you shall not be taken back to the convent, and no one shall make you a nun."
"You promise?" said Madelon, catching hold of her arm, and looking into her face with eager, suspicious eyes; "you promise not to take me back?"
"Yes, I promise," said the woman; "fear nothing, ma petite."
"And you won't tell Aunt Thérèse that I ran away? For she would be so angry, you know; she wanted to make me a nun like herself; you won't tell her—you won't, you won't?"
"No, no," said Jeanne-Marie. "I will tell nothing, you are quite safe here; now lie down and be quiet, and I will give you something nice to drink."
But Madelon's eyes wandered; the terrified look came again, and she clung tighter and tighter to Jeanne-Marie.
"Please ask Aunt Thérèse to go away!" she cried; "she is standing there in the corner of the room, staring at me; she will not move—there—there she is, don't you see? Oh, tell her to go away—she stares at me so, and oh! there is a coffin at her side, it is all over death's heads; Aunt Thérèse has a death's head—oh! take me away, take me away!"