"My mother's?" cried Mlle. de Beaumesnil, wonderingly.
Then she added, with touching naïveté:
"Some one must have deceived you, mademoiselle. My mother could not have had any enemies."
In a tone of tender commiseration, Helena replied, shaking her head:
"My dear child, such artlessness does your heart credit; but, alas! the best and most inoffensive people are exposed to the animosity of the wicked. Have not the gentle lambs ravening wolves for enemies?"
"But how had my mother ever wronged M. de Maillefort, mademoiselle?" asked Ernestine, with tears in her eyes.
"Why, in no way. Just Heaven! one might as well say that an innocent dove would attack a tiger."
"Then what was the cause of M. de Maillefort's animosity?"
"Alas! my poor child, I cannot tell you that. It would be too revolting—too horrible," answered Helena, sighing heavily.
"Then I have good cause to loathe this man, and yet I blamed myself for yielding to my involuntary aversion."