Mademoiselle Brun, who was busy with her work near the window, laid aside her needle and looked at Denise. She had a faculty of instantly going, as it were, to the essential part of a question and tearing the heart out of it: which faculty is, with all respect, more a masculine than a feminine quality. She ignored the side-issues and pounced, as it were, upon the central thread—the reason that Lory de Vasselot had had for sending such an order. She rose and tore open the newspaper, glanced at the war-news, and laid it aside. Then she opened a letter addressed to herself. It was on superlatively thick paper and bore a coronet in one corner.
“My Dear” (it ran),
“This much I have learnt from two men who will tell me nothing—France is lost. The Holy Virgin help us!
“Your devoted
“Jane De Mélide.”
Mademoiselle Brun turned away to the window, and stood there with her back to Denise for some moments. At length she came back, and the girl saw something in the grey and wizened face which stirred her heart, she knew not why; for all great thoughts and high qualities have power to illumine the humblest countenance.
“You may stay here if you like,” said Mademoiselle Brun, “but I am going back to France to-night.”
“What do you mean?”
For reply Mademoiselle Brun handed her the Baroness de Mélide's letter.
“Yes,” said Denise, when she had read the note. “But I do not understand.”