"Oh, Mr. Donald!" she exclaimed, with much emotion, "I can't take this—indeed I cannot!"
"Oh, Madame René, but indeed you can," he retorted, laughing. "And now," he added hastily (to prevent her from protesting any longer), "I am not going to inflict myself upon you for the entire day. You must be very tired; and, besides, after you are rested, we must decide upon the next thing to be done. I have cabled to my uncle, and there is no doubt that he will send word for you to come with me at once to America. Now, surely, you'll go? Please say that you will. I'll wait a week or two, for you."
Elise hesitated.
"It would be a great joy," she said, "to go to America and to see little Dorothy. She is a great deal more to me—and so are you, Mr. Donald—than one would think; for, though you were both too young to be very interesting when I was your bonne, I have thought and dreamed so often of you in all these long years, and of what you both might have lived to be if I had not thrown you away from me that night, that I—" her eyes filled with tears.
"Yes, indeed; I know you take an interest in us both," was his cordial reply. "And it makes me wish that you were safe with us in America, where you would never see trouble nor suffer hardship any more. Say you will go."
"Could I work?" she said eagerly. "Could I sew, make dresses, do anything to be useful to Miss Dorothy? My ambition of late has been to go back to England and set up for a dressmaker, and some day have a large place, with girls to help me; but that would be impossible—life is so hard for poor folk here in Europe. I feel as if I would do anything to see Miss Dorothy."
"But you can have America, and Miss Dorothy, and the dressmaking establishment, or whatever you please," Don pursued with enthusiasm; "only be ready to sail by an early steamer. And since you go for our sakes, and to satisfy my uncle, you must let us pay all the cost and ever so much more. Think what joy you give us all in proving, without a doubt, that Dorothy is—Dorothy."
"I will go," she said.
That same day Donald again flew up the long flight of stairs in the Rue Soudière. He had, meantime, secured a room in some hotel recommended to him by M. Bajeau, and already had received a letter there that had filled him with pleasant expectation. It was this letter that now sent him back to ask Madame René if he might call that evening and bring a friend.