"Ah, my dearest child, may you never have a less justifiable aversion," said the devotee, sanctimoniously, lifting her eyes heavenward.
Then she added:
"I must leave you, now, my dear Ernestine. Sleep sweetly. To-morrow morning, at nine o'clock, I will come for you to go to church."
"Good-bye until to-morrow, mademoiselle; but, alas! you leave me with sad thoughts,—my mother had an enemy."
"It is best to know the real character of the wicked, my dear Ernestine, for then one can at least guard against their evil doing. And now good-bye until to-morrow morning."
"Good night, mademoiselle."
So Mlle. de la Rochaiguë departed, proud of the perfidious cunning with which she had aroused a cruel distrust of M. de Maillefort in Mlle. de Beaumesnil's heart.
Ernestine left alone, rang for her governess, who also acted as her personal attendant.
Madame Laîné entered.
She was about forty years of age, with a somewhat insipid face, and a pleasant, though rather obsequious manner, in which there was a touch of servility that made it very different from the devotion of a faithful nurse, which is always instinct with the dignity of disinterested affection.