CHAPTER X
THE LIVE PUPPET
After Auntie left Jeanne and the Pierrot asleep in bed that night, she went into her own room and sat down by her little table. She shaded her eyes with her hands and thought very hard.
Poor Auntie Sue was unhappy. There was a little voice inside of her that never would be still. This voice talked and talked and talked. No one could hear it but Auntie Sue. It was not a person, nor was it a fairy. Yet it was there, and it talked to Auntie Sue.
People call that voice Conscience. You see, many other people beside Auntie Sue have heard that voice. He is known to everyone who does wrong.
And Auntie Sue had done great wrong. Not knowing it, she had been doing a great wrong all these years she had kept Jeanne from her rightful home. And now that voice called Conscience was tormenting her.
To-night he was talking more loudly and more fiercely than he had ever talked before. As Auntie Sue sat before her little table, he did not leave her a moment's peace.
"You see what has happened," he said inside of Auntie Sue. "You see what you have done by keeping Jeanne from Madame Villard. She is starved for play.