"But you are here alone?"
Two large tears ran down her face.
"You should understand the De Ferriers are poor, monsieur, unless something can be saved from our estates that the Bonapartes have given away. Cousin Philippe went to see if we could recover any part of them. Count de Chaumont thought it a favorable time. But he was too old for such a journey; and the disappointments at the end of it."
"Old! Was he old, madame?"
"Almost as old as my father."
"But you are very young."
"I was only thirteen when my father on his deathbed married me to Cousin Philippe. We were the last of our family. Now Cousin Philippe is dead and Paul and I are orphans!"
She felt her loss as Paul might have felt his. He was gurgling at Ernestine's knee in the next room.
"I want advice," she said; and I stood ready to give it, as a man always is; the more positively because I knew nothing of the world.
"Cousin Philippe said I must go to France, for Paul's sake, and appeal myself to the empress, who has great influence over the emperor. His command was to go at once."