"Oh, Lucille!" I cried, throwing my arms round her. "Do not lose a moment! There is yet time. Hasten to your parents, and tell them what you have done. They will find a way for you to escape."
"And so have my father sent to the galleys for abducting a Catholic child?" said Lucille. "Or perhaps have lighted matches tied to his fingers, or live coals laid on his breast, to force him to confess? No, Vevette, the deed is done, and I am not sorry—no, I am not sorry!" she repeated firmly. "Good-by, Vevette: Kiss me once, though I am an apostate. I shall not infect you. Comfort my mother, if you can."
I embraced her, and took my way homeward, stupefied with grief. I can safely say that if Lucille had been struck dead by a thunderbolt before my eyes, the stroke would not have been more dreadful. My mother met me at the door of Grace's room, whither I went with my burden, hardly knowing more what I was doing than some wounded animal which crawls home to die.
"You are late, petite," said she.
And then, catching sight of my face, she asked me what was the matter, repeating my name and her inquiry in the tenderest tones, as I fell into her kind arms and laid my head on her shoulder, unable to speak a word. Then in a new tone of alarm, as the ever-present danger arose before her:
"Has anything happened to your father, Vevette? Speak, my child!"
"Speak, Mrs. Vevette!" said Grace sharply. "Don't you see you are killing your mother?"
The crisp, imperative tones of command seemed to awaken my stunned powers.
"No, no, not my father," I said, "but Lucille." And then I poured out my story.
"The wretched, unhappy girl! She has sacrificed herself in a fit of ill-temper, and is now lost to her family forever!" said my mother.