Mme. Derize looked so pale, so fragile, that this suggestion seemed a reality. Elizabeth, uneasy, realizing that the attack was growing worse, put her to bed and watched over her. In the evening the old woman laid her feverish hand on the bent head of her companion:

"I was right when I told him...."

"What, Mother?"

"That you are my daughter."

VI
MADAME DERIZE

After eighteen months, Elizabeth was awaiting her husband. The sad event which was bringing them together had had its beginning on the evening when Albert's mother had walked too quickly to Saint Martin. After Madame Derize's night of suffering, the young wife, foreseeing danger, instinctively made the wisest decision and telegraphed to her parents and to her doctor at Grenoble. She asked for immediate help, realizing that while there was still time, they would have to get away at once from a village so primitive and resourceless, and requested the most comfortable means of transport. M. Molay-Norrois—and his wife made no objection—and told Mme. Passerat how useful her motor would be under such circumstances; and she, with that keen executive ability and rapidity of action, of which she had so often given proof in organizing society fêtes, gave orders that her 40 h.p. car be arranged as an ambulance, and sent, with it a doctor and a necessary medicine chest to the mountains of Uriage.

"This is the first time I have traveled in a motor," murmured the invalid smilingly, as she was carried into it on the bed arranged for her.

In the afternoon she was brought to her home on the Boulevard des Adieux, and her daughter-in-law took her place at her bedside. The next day Blanche Vernier came down with the children, of whom she had offered to take charge. The case was diagnosed as congestion of the lungs, which grew no worse until the fifth day. Immediately upon her arrival at Grenoble, Elizabeth had begged Philippe Lagier to wire to Albert's address in Paris. As there was no answer, she sent repeated telegrams, all of which were returned to her marked "Absent." When the invalid was questioned she could give no exact information. As her son left her, he had spoken of a rapid journey to Piedmont, returning to Paris over the Simplon.

"I shall write to you during the trip," he had added.

A post card came, which bore the name of an unknown village in Italy. On a detailed map they found that it was in the neighborhood of Ivrée. In accordance with his usual plan, the traveler was journeying through out of the way places to gain information for his book. Another telegram, directed there as a last resort, did not reach him. At last he wrote from Aosta, and his letter stated that he would spend a week there. Informed directly, he wired that he would leave with all possible haste. It was the eighth day and his mother had passed away the night before. They did not tell him so, but he could draw that conclusion from the telegram.