“I do believe,” answered Diane. “And I promise you that I will see him but once again, and that is to-morrow morning when he comes to take me away—but he will not take me.”
The two women talked in an ordinary key and with strange calmness.
“How could you fail to suspect the Marquis?” said Madame Egmont. “Have you no friends to advise you?”
“Oh, I have very good friends. But we are very humble people—except one of us—and we don’t understand great people.”
“I shall remain here,” said Madame Egmont, “in this town for some days, until I can see my husband’s colonel—I want to save the name my child bears. Besides, I am not really able to travel—”
She rose as she spoke, and then, suddenly turning an ashy white, fell over in a dead faint in Diane’s arms. Diane, who was strong and supple despite her slimness, carried Madame Egmont like a child and laid her on the bed, Diane’s own bed, and loosened her clothes and did promptly what is to be done for a woman in a faint. The frightened child began to cry, and the sound seemed to bring back Madame Egmont’s wandering consciousness. Diane picked up the child and placed her on the bed, and then ran and fetched a glass of wine for Madame Egmont.
“If I had a bit of bread,” she whispered.
A light broke upon Diane’s mind. She ran back into the little kitchen, started up the fire, and put some broth on it to warm; then rummaging in the cupboard she found some milk which she heated, too.
In ten minutes she walked in the room with a tray. Madame Egmont, sitting up in the little bed, ate her broth and bread, while Diane fed the child sitting in her lap. Then laying the little girl in the bed by the side of her mother, Diane took out a fresh night-dress, and going up to Madame Egmont proceeded unceremoniously to undress her.
“What do you mean?” asked Madame Egmont, weak and bewildered.