The mystery of such a strange occurrence may never be solved, but Françoise threw herself on the ground in a corner where the little garden had stood, and began to dig furiously in the earth. Presently, she screamed:
"The box! The box! Jacques is not my son; Cinette is the Marquise de Fongereues. Jacques—Fanfar is Vicomte de Talizac!" And she fell unconscious into the arms of Labarre.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE NEST.
Two white beds stood near each other. Muslin curtains tied with blue ribbons covered the windows with billowy folds. Among the pillows of one of the beds lay a beautiful face, and a young girl at her side held her frail hands.
This chamber was that of Irène de Salves, and very unlike it was to the chamber of the spoiled child in the Château des Vosges. There she had created a mixture of all colors—violent reds and yellows. Now everything was delicate and calm. The sweet face among the pillows was Francine's. The two young girls were like sisters. Irène felt that to love, protect, and care for Francine, was to love Fanfar. The shock Francine had experienced was terrible; she hardly knew what had taken place—whether she deliberately threw herself into the water, or whether faint and dizzy, she fell in; when Fanfar leaped to her rescue she clung to him convulsively. Then came the fever and delirium, and when she was at last conscious she beheld a sweet face bending over her, and Irène said, "Courage, sister, courage!"
Francine, surprised and touched, extended her thin hands, but suddenly imagining that she was again in the house where she had suffered so much, she shrieked "Let me die! Let me die!"
A relapse took place, and for several days her life hung on a thread. Irène was indefatigable in her care, and finally she began to recover very slowly.