“I will help you all I can,” said Madelaine gravely; “and I am helping you now in advising you to wait.”
“I—I thought it was for the best,” sobbed the old lady piteously. “Hush! don’t speak to me aloud. Mr Leslie may hear.”
She glanced sharply round to where Leslie was standing with his back to them, gazing moodily from the window.
“Yes; Mr Leslie may hear,” said Madelaine sadly; and then in spite of the long years of dislike engendered by Aunt Marguerite’s treatment, she felt her heart stirred by pity for the lonely, suffering old creature upon whose head was being visited the sufferings of the stricken household.
“Let me go with you to your room,” she said gently.
“No, no!” cried Aunt Marguerite, with a frightened look. “You hate me too, and you will join the others in condemning me. Let me go to my brother now.”
“It would be madness,” said Madelaine gently; and she tried to take the old woman’s hand, but at that last word, Aunt Marguerite started from her, and stretched out her hands to keep her off.
“Don’t say that,” she said in a low voice, and with a quick glance at her brother and at Leslie, to see if they had heard. Then catching Madelaine’s hand, she whispered, “It is such a horrible word. Luke said it to me before you came. He said I must be mad, and George might hear it and think so too.”
“Let me go with you to your room.”
“But—but,” faltered the old woman, with her lips quivering, and a wildly appealing look in her eyes, “you—you don’t think that?”