"I can keep a secret," said Esther. "I will never mention it if I may not. Why did M'amzelle stop singing and come here?"
"Ah, she stopped singing long, long before she came here. She never sang after the great trouble came to her life, when the great English gentleman she was so soon to marry was killed."
Esther gave a little cry of horror. "Oh, how dreadful, but—but how—was it an accident?"
Anne's tongue was loosened now, he needed no questioning; he had so few opportunities to talk, he could not resist this one, and he wanted every one's sympathy for his beloved mistress. "Yes, it was an accident, a fearful, a cruel accident, and it happened less than a week before the wedding day. They were together at a station waiting for a train, when some one ran against him with so great force he reeled, he lost his balance, he fell forward, right off the platform—the train was just coming in!" Anne's voice died away in an awful impressive silence. "M'amzelle Lucille sprang to catch him—"
"Oh!" gasped Esther, in horror.
"They saved her," he added significantly; "but she was injured, she was lame always from that day, and her eyes were injured. She may be blind, some day—if she lives. He was killed before her eyes."
"Oh, poor M'amzelle Leperier," groaned Esther, her heart aching with the tragedy of the terrible story. "I wonder it did not kill her."
"It nearly did," said Anne significantly.
"And her singing?"
"She never sang again, m'amzelle. She says her voice broke with the shock—but it was her heart that broke. She loved him so; it was too cruel, too terrible."