"How if he loved you no longer?"
"Oh! that is impossible!" she cried, and a faint smile, nothing less than frank, broke over her face. Then all at once a kind of shudder ran through her, and she reddened, and she gave me a wild, swift glance as she asked:
"Is he alive?"
Great God! What a terrible phrase! I was too young to bear that tone in her voice; I made no reply, only looked at the unhappy woman in helpless bewilderment.
"Monsieur, monsieur, give me an answer!" she cried.
"Yes, madame."
"Is it true? Oh! tell me the truth; I can hear the truth. Tell me the truth! Any pain would be less keen than this suspense."
I answered by two tears wrung from me by that strange tone of hers. She leaned against a tree with a faint, sharp cry.
"Madame, here comes your husband!"
"Have I a husband?" and with those words she fled away out of sight.