“Alice, are you there? Answer me.”
“Yes, what do you want?”
Madame Dulaurens was surprised at the unexpected hardness of tone. She went back to the lighted corridor and returned with a lamp. She found her daughter lying motionless and white, and recognised traces of tears on her hastily dried cheeks. She sat down beside her at once and tried to take her in her arms. But Alice shrank from her embrace. All the mother in Madame Dulaurens was aroused, and she winced with pain.
“Dearest,” she said, “you are suffering. Tell me your trouble. I am your mother. What the matter to-night?”
Although her masterful nature was irritated by this rebellion, she understood that now she must not put pressure on her child. She covered her with kisses and overwhelmed her with kind words, but it was all in vain.
“What is the matter with you to-night?” she repeated.
“Nothing,” said Alice in a firm voice, which her mother did not recognise.
In the face of such profundity of sorrow Madame Dulaurens hesitated, not knowing which to ask of the two questions that burned her lips.
“Is it about your husband?” she asked at last.
She had guessed that Commander Guibert’s death had something to do with these tears. But she did not dare to allude to the secret which she had once treated so lightly.