She shook her head mournfully. "We were more than friends, and that is different."
"You were his wife?" said Medallion gently.
"It was different," she replied, flushing. "France is not the same as here. We were to be married, but on the eve of our wedding-day there was an end to it all. Only five years ago I found out he was here."
Then she became silent, and would, or could, speak no more; only, she said at last before he went: "You will not tell him, or any one?"
She need not have asked Medallion. He knew many secrets and kept them; which is not the usual way of good-humoured people.
But now, with the story told by the Avocat himself in his mind, he saw the end of the long romance. He came once more to the house of Madame Lecyr, and being admitted, said to her: "You must come at once with me."
She trembled towards him. "He is worse—he is dying!"
He smiled. "Not dying at all. He needs you; come along. I'll tell you as we go."
But she hung back. Then he told her all he had seen and heard the evening before. Without a word further she prepared to go. On the way he turned to her and said: "You are Madame Lecyr?"
"I am as he left me," she replied timidly, but with a kind of pride, too.