“Ah, it has not been easy for me,” said the girl, softly. “It is a great thing to renounce all you hold most dear in this world—to fly for refuge to a spot like this—the long, weary nights—the waiting—the longing—oh, you cannot know!” and she burst into a passion of weeping.
“You—you’re going to make me cry,” said Lucile, while a tear rolled down her face and splashed upon Jeanette’s bowed head.
“Ah, I am so foolish! There is no reason for tears—not now,” and over the girl’s tear-stained face flashed such a look of radiant joy that Lucile could only gaze, dumbfounded, at the transformation.
“Wh-what?” she stammered.
“Ah, you wonder, you are amazed—but you will not be when I have told you all. Look, this is the will—the will for which I have heard Henri is hunting. But that is 159 not everything—oh, it is nothing! See!” and she held up the little tin box for Lucile’s inspection, feverishly, eagerly. “In this is a letter from my father—my father, who died when I was so young and left me to the care of my guardian. He was good to me, but M. Charloix——” She shivered slightly. “But the letter,”—she drew it forth reverently—“ah, that changes the world for Henri and me!
“You see, when my father was very young, scarcely more than a boy, he ran away and married a girl of great beauty and intelligence, but one considered by the people among whom he moved as far beneath him in station. The rest is so old a story—his family were so cruel to him when it came to their knowledge, disinheriting him; and my father, not being accustomed to earn his own living, could not make enough to protect his sweet young wife—my mother——” Her voice broke, and Lucile squeezed the small, brown hand encouragingly.
“Ah, imagine it!” she cried. “Most often she had not enough to eat. Then, when I was only an infant, heart-broken at the suffering she thought herself to have brought upon herself and little daughter, together with so great privation itself, she died. My father followed soon after—heart-broken. Before he died, he wrote me this—ah, see how old it is—for he could not bear that I should hear of him from other lips than his.”
“But you, the child?” Lucile interrupted, eagerly. “What became of you?”
“Ah, he bequeathed me to the one friend whom he had not lost—and he was good; I cannot make you understand how good!”
“But he never told you about your parents?”