“And that’s his portrait that you have in a frame upstairs,” added Dumay.
“Give me back that letter, Monsieur Dumay,” said Modeste, erecting herself like a lioness defending her cubs.
“There it is, mademoiselle,” he replied.
Modeste put it into the bosom of her dress, and gave Dumay the one intended for her father.
“I know what you are capable of, Dumay,” she said; “and if you take one step against Monsieur de Canalis, I shall take another out of this house, to which I will never return.”
“You will kill your mother, mademoiselle,” replied Dumay, who left the room and called his wife.
The poor mother was indeed half-fainting,—struck to the heart by Modeste’s words.
“Good-bye, wife,” said the Breton, kissing the American. “Take care of the mother; I go to save the daughter.”
He made his preparations for the journey in a few minutes, and started for Havre. An hour later he was travelling post to Paris, with the haste that nothing but passion or speculation can get out of wheels.
Recovering herself under Modeste’s tender care, Madame Mignon went up to her bedroom leaning on the arm of her daughter, to whom she said, as her sole reproach, when they were alone:—