"My child," she said when she recovered herself, "it is your good heart which says this."
The same night Valentin came. Laure went out into the antechamber to meet him, and each stood and looked at the other with pale face and anguished eyes. Valentin's eyes were hollow and sunken as if with some great sorrow, and his large awkward frame seemed wasted. But there was no reproach mingled with the indescribable sadness of his gaze.
"Your note came to me," he said. "Our mother "—
"She is in there," said Laure in a low, hurried, shaken voice, and she pointed to the salon. "She has come to embrace me,—to make sure that I am happy. Ah, my God!" and she covered her deathly face with her hands.
Valentin did not approach her. He could only stand still and look on. One thought filled his mind.
"We have no time to weep, Laure," he said gently. "We must go on as we have begun. Give me your hand."
This was all, and then the two went in together, Laure's hand upon her brother's arm.
It was a marvelous life Mère Giraud lived during the next few days. Certainly she could not complain that she was not treated with deference and affection. She wore the silk dress every day; she sat at the wonderful table, and a liveried servant stood behind her chair; she drove here and there in a luxurious carriage; she herself, in fact, lived the life of an aristocrat and a great lady. Better than all the rest, she found her Laure as gracious and dutiful as her fond heart could have wished. She spent every hour with her; she showed her all her grandeurs of jewelry and toilette; she was not ashamed of her mother, untutored and simple as she might be.
"Only she is very pale and quiet," she remarked to Valentin once; "even paler and more quiet than I should have expected. But then we know that the rich and aristocratic are always somewhat reserved. It is only the peasantry and provincials who are talkative and florid. It is natural that Laure should have gained the manner of the great world."
But her happiness, poor soul, did not last long, and yet the blow God sent was a kindly one.