"If madame would only listen, I was going to say—but madame is too quick in her disposition—the carriage has been waiting since a long hour ago. Mr. Horace said to have it there in a half hour."
It was then she saw for the first time that it had all been prepared by Mr. Horace. The rest was easy enough: getting into the carriage, and finding the place of which Mr. Horace had heard, as he said, only that afternoon. In it, on her bed of illness, poverty, and suffering, lay the patient, wasted form of the beautiful fair one whom men had called in her youth Myosotis.
But she did not call her Myosotis.
"Mon Amour!" The old pet name, although it had to be fetched across more than half a century of disuse, flashed like lightning from madame's heart into the dim chamber.
"Ma Divine!" came in counter-flash from the curtained bed.
In the old days women, or at least young girls, could hazard such pet names one upon the other. These—think of it!--dated from the first communion class, the dating period of so much of friendship.
"My poor Amour!"
"My poor, poor Divine!"
The voices were together, close beside the pillow.
"I—I—" began Divine.