She had reached the perfidious age when a woman’s beauty, like a full-blown rose, fades in a day.
Four months of trouble had made her an old woman. Sorrow had stamped its fatal seal upon her brow. Her fair, soft skin was wrinkled, her golden hair was streaked with silver, and her large, soft eyes had a painfully frightened look.
“Do you not agree with me,” continued Madeleine, pityingly, “that peace of mind is necessary to you? Do you not see that you are a wreck of your former self? It is a miracle that M. Fauvel has not noticed this sad change in you!”
Mme. Fauvel, who flattered herself that she had displayed wonderful dissimulation, shook her head.
“Alas, my poor aunt! you think you concealed your secret from all: you may have blinded my uncle, but I suspected all along that something dreadful was breaking your heart.”
“You suspected what, Madeleine? Not the truth?”
“No, I was afraid—Oh, pardon an unjust suspicion, my dear aunt, but I was wicked enough to suppose——”
She stopped, too distressed to finish her sentence; then, making a painful effort, she added, as her aunt signed to her to go on:
“I was afraid that perhaps you loved another man than my uncle; it was the only construction that I could put upon your strange conduct.”
Mme. Fauvel buried her face, and groaned. Madeleine’s suspicion was, no doubt, entertained by others.