On a chair, near the window, lay the old uniform.
"Lucie!" cried the master, understanding.
"Did you think that I would fail you," she said, "or try to hold you back?"
They went into the inner room together.
In a few moments, the woman came out.
"You will drink a cup of milk before you go, won't you?" she asked, addressing Horace. "M. Maubin tells me that you are going to walk part of the way with him. You do not go all the way?" she added, wistfully.
"I'd like to, Madame," answered the boy, "I'd love to volunteer. But they wouldn't let me. You see," he continued, "I'm an American and that counts me out. Deschamps is going, though."
The woman looked at Horace with a sudden intensity that frightened him for a moment. He remembered having heard that the master's wife possessed strange gifts. But she shook herself out of her fixity of pose and continued,
"And the school is closed?"
"No, Madame," answered Horace, "the school is not closed. M. Maubin has put the school in our trust."