A wail broke from Marion's lips. 'I cannot understand it. Aunt Keziah, are we all going mad?'
Simone, staring across at Victoire, seemed not to hear, and Sampson, watching the girl, saw that she was slowly linking together the scattered chain of her memories.
'The woman Victoire will doubtless explain,' said Mistress Keziah. 'I told your father there was some hideous mystery. The whole village knew. Any one else but my brother would have known. The woman just put her own child in Simone's place.'
Again a stupefied silence fell on the room. There was no word from the woman at the door.
Quite suddenly Marion burst into tears.
'It is horrible,' she said. 'Horrible! Have I been all these years playing and sleeping and eating with some one called Suzanne Marie, and the real Elise starving in London? Simone,'—she threw her arms round the girl's neck,—'forgive me, forgive us.'
Mistress Keziah's old eyes watered as she looked at the girl who had always been so self-controlled. 'My darling,' she said, 'it was not your fault.'
'I cannot bear it!' cried Marion. 'And I care not who sees me weep. Romaine says she found Simone in a fearful state in a gutter in Crutched Friars. She had been so dreadfully treated that she nearly died. Then when Romaine had nursed her back to health she could not remember anything.'
'No,' broke in Simone's toneless voice. 'No. But I remember now. Dear Marion, do not be unhappy.'
'I cannot help but be unhappy,' said Marion, drying her eyes. 'We ought to have found out. Somebody ought to have done something. Think of it, Aunt Keziah, Simone working in London, stitching all day for a bit of food. I cannot bear it.' Marion sat down and buried her face in her hands.