”‘Yes,’ said Edmée. ‘But the poor people who are so often cold and hungry—ah, I could not make them more unhappy!’
”‘Bless her kind heart!’ murmured Madame Germain, and many a dweller in Valmont-les-Roses echoed the words.
“Some weeks passed—as if to make up for the severity of the winter, the spring came early that year, and with unusual softness and balminess. The Count was able to sit out on the terrace in the finest part of the day, enjoying the sweet air after his long confinement to the house, and though he knew in his heart that the improvement was but for a time, he had not the courage to say so to his poor wife. And so some amount of hopefulness seemed to have returned.
“One day, when Edmée was coming back from a visit to the village, escorted by Pierre, she was met at the gates of the château by one of the servants, who told her that the Count and Countess wished her to go at once to the terrace.
”‘My lord the Marquis has arrived unexpectedly,’ added the man.
“Edmée shrank back.
”‘Pierrot,’ she said, in the half-babyish way she still sometimes spoke, ‘Edmée doesn’t want to see him.’
”‘But Edmée must,’ said the boy smiling.
”‘Pierrot must come too, then,’ said the little girl coaxingly; and so, a good deal against his will, for he had an instinctive dislike to the lord of Sarinet, the boy was obliged to go with her. And, out of a sort of mischief, the child clung tightly to him, even when they came within sight of the group on the terrace, though when he saw that there were strangers there, Pierre would gladly have drawn back.
“A tall, distinguished-looking man, with clear cut features and piercing dark eyes, was sitting beside the Countess. He rose as he heard her exclamation, ‘At last comes Edmée!’ and calling to him a boy about Pierre’s age, but much smaller and thinner, came forward as if to meet her. But catching sight of her companion he hesitated: a frown crossed his face, and turning to his sister—for he was the Marquis de Sarinet—he said coldly: