Her companion shook her head. “Really, I don’t know. Suppose we walk on now to the hut where your little French girl Nicolete once lived.”
When the two friends reached the hut, Nona Davis exclaimed in amazement:
“What on earth has happened? Why, our hut isn’t a hut any longer; it is a charming little house with some one living in it. I am going to knock and see who it can be. French people are so courteous, I am sure they won’t mind telling me.”
Nona knocked and the next moment the door was opened by a young French woman. For an instant they stared at each other, then kissed in a bewilderingly friendly fashion.
“Why, Nicolete, I can’t believe my own eyes!” Nona protested. “What are you doing back here in your own little house, only it is so changed that I would scarcely have recognized it.”
Nicolete’s dark eyes shone and the vivid color flooded her face.
“I am married,” she explained. “You remember Monsieur Renay, whom Mademoiselle Barbara named ‘Monsieur Bebé?’ Well,” Nicolete laughed bewitchingly, “he is my husband.”
“And is he——” Nona asked and hesitated.
Nicolete shook her head. “He can tell the light from the darkness, and now and then can see me moving in the shadow. Some day, the doctors say, his sight may be fully restored. He has seen the best specialists. Madame Eugenié sent us both to Paris. She it was who made us a home here in the woods out of the old hut, so that my husband might have the fresh air and grow strong to aid his recovery.”
“Madame Eugenié,” it was a pretty title and one that Eugenia would probably always have in this French country, which had so long known the old Countess as Madame Castaigne.