“Guillaume!”
Her fingers trembled. She could only whisper:
“A letter from Dieppe ... from my solicitor.... Oh, I was waiting for it so anxiously!... Think, Guillaume: it brings me a name ... nothing can separate us now....”
The excitement was too much for her. She felt herself small and feeble in the grip of an over-great happiness. And, covering her face with her crossed hands, as was her wont at moments of perturbation, she wept tears of delight.
Some minutes passed in silence. She heard Guillaume open the garden-door. Steps approached, some one sat down beside her, a hand unlocked her fingers: it was Mme. de la Vaudraye.
She shrank back imperceptibly. But Mme. de la Vaudraye said:
“Gilberte, are you afraid of me?”
And the voice was so gentle that Gilberte was quite stirred. She looked at her through her tears and hardly recognized her. Her features had lost their customary hardness, her countenance the expression of implacable pride that deprived it of all its charm. And this charm now showed itself in the eyes, which had lost their severity, in the pathetic wrinkles of the forehead, in all that sad and withered face.
“Gilberte, you wished to be my daughter: do you wish it still?”
She had no time to reply. Guillaume had rushed up to both of them and was kissing them by turns. And he said, fervently: