"I am sure I will do all I can," replied Madam Vipon, who was greatly taken by Ronald's appearance and manner; "it's a cruel thing separating a mother from a son so many years, and after all what I am doing is no hanging matter anyway."
A few minutes later Jeanne entered; she was a pleasant looking woman of five or six and twenty, and even her sombre attire as a lay sister failed to give a formal look to her merry face.
"So these are the gentlemen who want me to become a conspirator," she said, "and to run the risk of all sorts of punishment and penalties for meddling in their business?"
"Not so much my business as the business of my mother," Ronald said. "You who have such true heart of your own, for madam has told us something of your story, will, I am sure, feel for that poor lady shut up for fifteen years, and knowing not whether her child is dead or alive. If we could but see each other for five minutes, think what joy it would be to her, what courage her poor heart would take."
"See each other!" Jeanne repeated surprised. "You said nothing about that, Francoise; you only said take a message. How can they possibly see each other? That's a different thing altogether."
"I want you to take a message first," Ronald said. "If nothing more can be done that will be very much; but I cannot think but that you and my mother between you will be able to hit upon some plan by which we might meet."
"But how," Jeanne asked in perplexity, "how could it possibly be?"
"For example," Ronald suggested; "could I not come in as a lay sister? I am not much taller than you, and could pass very well as a girl."
Jeanne burst our laughing.
"You do not know what you are saying, monsieur; it would be altogether impossible. People do not get taken on as lay sisters in the convent of Our Lady unless they are known; besides, in other ways it would be altogether impossible, and even if it were not it might be years before you could get to speak to the countess, for there are only two or three of us who ever enter the visitors' rooms; and lastly, if you were found out I don't know what would be done to both of us. No, that would never do at all."