For a few seconds she saw nobody, and then all at once some one rose from a reclining chair at the farther end of the apartment and advanced a few steps toward her—a tall and stately figure, moving slowly.
"Who?"—she heard a cold, soft voice say, and then came a sharp cry, and Laurel white hands were thrown out in a strange, desperate gesture, and she stopped and stood like a statue of stone. "Mother—mother—mother!" she repeated again and again, as if some indescribable pain shook her.
If she had been beautiful before, now she was more beautiful still. She was even taller than ever,—she was like a queen. Her long robe was of delicate gray velvet, and her hair and throat and wrists were bound with pearls and gold. She was so lovely and so stately that for a moment Mère Giraud was half awed, but the next it was as if her strong mother heart broke loose.
"My Laure!" she cried out. "Yes, it is I, my child—it is I, Laure;" and she almost fell upon her knees as she embraced her, trembling for very ecstasy.
But Laure scarcely spoke. She was white and cold, and at last she gasped forth three words.
"Where is Valentin?"
But Mère Giraud did not know. It was not Valentin she cared to see. Valentin could wait, since she had, her Laure. She sat down beside her in one of the velvet chairs, and she held the fair hand in her own. It was covered with jewels, but she did not notice them; her affection only told her that it was cold and tremulous.
"You are not well, Laure?" she said. "It was well that my dream warned me to come. Something is wrong."
"I am quite well," said Laure. "I do not suffer at all."
She was so silent that if Mère Giraud had not had so much to say she would have been troubled \ as it was, however, she was content to pour forth her affectionate speeches one after another without waiting to be answered.