"I placed my children in your charge. You should not have left them—"
"Left them?"
"Yes, even for a minute...."
This reproach was manifestly unjust. Although not far-sighted, Blanche Vernier possessed that instinct of the heart which penetrates the hidden causes of our acts or our feelings—Divining her friend's emotion, she bore this absurd accusation without defending herself. Elizabeth trembled at the thought that she might have met her husband, not knowing in her confusion whether she regretted or dreaded this meeting.
"Listen," she said in a softer voice. "Go to the children and send Marie Louise to me."
A few minutes later, the little girl came in, not with her nose in the air and a bright face, with the dancing step with which she shook her blonde curls as she tripped through the house, but instead with a stiff walk and lowered eyes.
Her mother drew her towards her too jealously and held her arms—
"Look at me!"
As the child hesitated in her embarrassment, Elizabeth who was very nervous, grew angry.
"But look at me—whom did you meet on the road?"