“After a few days, however, she grew more quiet, and asked for Anna, who went to her immediately, feeling shocked at the great change a few days had wrought in the brilliant woman whom so many accounted handsome. True to her instincts as a French woman, she was becomingly dressed in an elegant morning wrapper, with a tasteful cap upon her glossy hair, but all her bright color was gone; her eyes were sunken and glassy, and she looked pale, and withered, and old as she reclined in her easy-chair.
“‘Oh, madame, I did not know you had been so sick. I am very sorry,’ Anna said, going up her, and offering her hand.
“But Eugenie would not take it, and motioning her away, said:
“‘It is not for you to touch such as I; but sit down. I want to talk much with you. There is something I must tell somebody, and you are the only true, pure woman here, unless it may be Madame Verwest, who hates me. I’d as soon talk to an icicle and expect sympathy, as to her. I liked you when I saw you, though I came prepared to hate, and do you harm.’
“‘Hate me, and wished to do me harm? Why?’ Anna asked, her great blue eyes full of wonder and surprise.
“‘Don’t you know? Can’t you guess some reason why I should hate you?’ Eugenie said: and Anna, into whose mind a suspicion of what this woman really was had never entered, answered:
‘I do not know why any one should hate me, when I am so desolate, and wretched, and homesick here, but not crazy. Oh, madame, surely you do not believe me crazy?’
‘Crazy! No, not half as much so as the man who keeps you here,’ and Eugenie spoke impetuously, while her black eyes flashed, and there came a deep red flush to her face. ‘What age have you, girl? You look too young to be madame,’ she continued.
“‘Not quite nineteen,’ was Anna’s reply.
“‘Neither was she when I saw her last, and you are like her in voice and manner, and so many things, and that’s why I cannot hate you. Oh, Mon Dieu, that she should die and I live on,’ said Eugenie. ‘Let me tell you about her, the sweetest child that ever drew breath; not high or noble, but lowly born, a country lass, as innocent and happy as the birds which sang by that cottage door, and I loved her, oh, how I loved her from the hour her dying mother, who was not my mother, but my father’s wife, put her in my arms. I am almost thirty-eight. She, if living, would be twenty-three; so you see my arms were young and strong, and they kept her so tenderly and lovingly. How I cared for her and watched over her as she grew into the sweetest rose that ever bloomed in fair Normandy. How I toiled and drudged for her, going without myself that Petite might be fed, that hers might be the dainty food, the pretty peasant’s dress in which she was so lovely. How I meant to educate and bring her up a lady, so that no soil should come to her soft white hands, no tire to her little feet. When she was fifteen I went to Paris, hoping to get money and a home for her. I was a milliner first, then I recited, I sang, I acted and attracted much attention, and kept myself good and pure for her, till there came a chance of earning money faster, and woe is me. I took it. You are Anglaise or Americaine, which amounts to the same thing. You do not understand how a woman may think herself respectable and do these things, but I am French, educated differently. Half of my countrywomen have their grande passion, their liaison, their, what do you call it in English?’