For an instant Victorine stared at her. Then, leaning slowly forward and looking straight into Deborah's honest eyes, she asked, in a low tone, "You did not know—that de Bernis—that—I—"
Deborah sprang up, the empty tea-bowl rolling unheeded at her feet. She had grown suddenly very white, and, as she returned Victorine's own look, searchingly, she found in the other face what made the horror in her own deepen, as she backed unconsciously towards the wall.
"You don't know!—Mon Dieu!—Why, Claude—was mad, mad, to have brought you here!—Why, madame—Deborah—we're all alike! You mustn't look at me like that. I am not different from the others. Henri de Mailly—the Marquise—the Mirepoix—Mme. de Rohan—Mme. de Châteauroux—child, it is a custom. The King—Claude himself—before—"
"Ah!" Deborah made a sound in her throat, not a scream, not an articulate word, but a kind of guttural, choking groan. Then she covered her face with her hands. For a moment that seemed an eternity she stood there repeating to herself those last cruel, insensate words, "'Claude himself—before—'"
And then Victorine, looking at her, came to a realizing sense of what she had done. Moved by a half-impulse, she started up unsteadily, swayed for an instant, and then fell back upon her chair, covering her head with her hands and arms, and bursting into a passion of sobs so heart-broken, so deep, so childlike forlorn, that they roused Deborah from herself. Letting her hands fall, she looked over towards her visitor. There was a note in the Maréchale's voice, and a line of utter abandon in her position, that brought a pang of woman's sympathy into the heart of the woman-child who regarded her. Putting away from her all selfishness, even that miserable thought of Claude, forgetting the brutal openness with which Victorine had spoken, she suddenly ran across the room and took Victorine into both her strong, young arms. Victorine's head found a resting-place on her shoulder; Victorine's aching, hopeless, impure heart beat for an instant in unison with that other one; Victorine's racking sobs ceased gradually. She gave a long, shivering sigh. There was a quickening silence through the room. Then the frail little figure loosed its grasp on Deborah, straightened quickly up, and turned to move to the chair where her wraps lay. Dully, Deborah watched the Maréchale tie on her hood and pull the cloak about her shoulders. Then, picking up gloves and muff, the visitor turned again and moved back to where Deborah stood. In front of her she stopped, and her eyes, in which shone two great tears, rested in dim pity and sorrow upon Deborah's white face. The look lasted for a long moment. Then, slowly, without a word, the Maréchale picked her handkerchief from the floor where it lay and began moving towards the door. Before she had reached it Claude's wife spoke again, more steadily:
"Mme. de Coigny—you must not go—yet."
The Mare'chale paused, with her back to Deborah, and stood hesitating.
"You must not go yet," repeated the voice. "You must tell me, first—about Claude."
A little moan came from Victorine's lips. "Claude—Claude—I c-cannot tell you about him. I know nothing! I—I lied to you. He is not like the rest."
"No, madame; that is not so. You try to be—kind. Was it—tell me—Mme. de Châteauroux? Yes. Now I know. That is true."