"These recollections only sadden you, and do you no good at all," said Elinor, shaking all over, and picking up her child. "Decidedly, I shall have to part you."
"Forgive me, madame; I have been dreaming. But why wake me so soon?"
Not daring to listen to another word, Elinor fled with her child to tell Mme. de Gernancé all that had passed between them.
From that day, little Léonie was as assiduous as her mother in her attentions to the convalescent. He continually asked for her, and became passionately attached to her.
The child, for her part, called him her friend, heaped kisses on him, and insisted on being always between him and her mother. Her artless affection for them both gave rise to many an embarrassing scene that was fraught with pleasure for Elinor, but left Léon ever more depressed and pensive.
Meantime, he was growing visibly stronger; his wound was making progress; time, which passes so swiftly in the happy days of a budding friendship, had brought winter back again with the month of December.
Mme. de Gernancé had for some time talked of leaving them; she now declared she could no longer postpone her departure. Then, all at once, in a voice that showed the effort the words cost him, Léon begged permission to accompany her.
Greatly surprised at so sudden a decision, Mme. de Roselis opposed the plan.
"Ah, madame," he answered quickly, "pray let me go; I have but too long reveled in a happiness that is full of danger, since it is not for me. Let me flee from you and your child, from the spell of your kind care, and these happy days that fly so fast. Let me return to the solitude that must ever be my lot."
"But at least, wait till we can ask the doctor if you are fit to—"