“Until to-night, father,” she said. “May God help you.”
On the doorstep he replied briskly: “Until to-night, little girl—with Maurice.”
The girl had just shut herself in her room to pray when Jeanne Sassenay called at the house.
“Miss Margaret, if you please,” she demanded of the servant who opened the door.
The maid, more rigid and circumspect since Raymony Bercy’s invasion, dismissed this inopportune question in a peremptory tone.
“Miss Margaret is tired. She is seeing no one.”
“So much the worse. I’ll come in, nevertheless.”
And passing by the frightened servant before she had time to bar the way, Jeanne went through the hall on a run, as far as her friend’s room, which she knew of old. She knocked smartly, entered and threw herself into Margaret’s arms.
“It’s I, Margaret,” she said. “Don’t send me away. It’s not Melanie’s fault.”
“You, Jeanne? Why are you here?”