"Why are you crying, child?" said this smiling lady.
"Oh ma'am!" cried the girl, half crazy and beside herself with her troubles—"Oh, ma'am! let me tell you a little!"
She told her more than a little: she told her in fact everything—in a torrent of words and tears—except the one thing that might have helped her. She did not say that she was married, though short of that she gulped the shame of loving unloved.
"Poor child!" said the lady when she had heard the sobbed confession,
"you are indeed in love. And Prosper le Gai is your lover? And you are
Isoult la Desirous? So these notches declare at least: they are yours,
I suppose?"
"Yes, indeed, ma'am," said Isoult; "but he is not my lover. He is my master."
"Oh, of course, of course, child," the lady laughed—"they are always the master. If we are the mistress we are lucky. And do you love him so much, Isoult?"
"Yes, ma'am," said she.
"Silly girl, silly girl! How much do you love him now?"
"I could not tell you, ma'am."
"Could you tell him then?"