“It was hard, very hard, for Edmée to keep her resolution of doing nothing to add to her mother’s distress. But she bravely drove back her tears, and throwing her arms round the Countess’s neck, kissed her tenderly.
”‘Don’t cry, dear little mother,’ she said; ‘Madame Germain has been speaking to me, and I am going to be very good. I am going to learn my lessons in Paris so well, so very well, that you will be quite surprised how clever I shall become, and then we shall all the sooner be able to return to our dear Valmont. When are we to start, dear mamma? You see, I am going to be very good. You need not be afraid to tell me all, and she sat up, valiantly blinking away the tears that would, keep coming.’
“The Countess was greatly relieved.
”‘My good Marie,’ she said—‘Marie’ was Madame Germain’s first name—‘it is very kind of her to have spoken so wisely to my little girl, and it will make all easier for me. Yes, dear, it will be soon, very soon—the day after to-morrow we have to leave for Sarinet.’
”‘The day after to-morrow!’ exclaimed Edmée. ‘Ah, yes, that is very soon.’
“But no other words of complaint or distress escaped her.
“And two days later saw the Countess and her daughter in the great big travelling carriage, which had made but few journeys since the good Count’s death, on their way to the Château de Sarinet. They were accompanied by Nanette and her uncle Ludovic, who had long been a sort of steward in the house, and could not make up his mind to see his lady go to Paris without him. Poor old Françoise would gladly have gone too, but at her age it was out of the question, so she remained, with many tears, at Valmont, where she kept all in the most perfect order, so that, as she used to say, ‘if my lady comes back at any moment, there will be nothing to do but light the fire.’ And on the box, between the rather fat coachman and Ludovic, Pierre Germain managed to squeeze himself in. He had begged hard to accompany them all the way to Sarinet, but the Countess had judged it better not. Her regard for the boy and his parents was very sincere, and it would have pained her for him to have been treated at her brother’s house like a common servant-boy, as, indeed, no servant-boy was ever treated at Valmont. So Pierre bade his dear ladies farewell at Machard, a little village where they stopped for the first night, whence he returned by himself to his home, for twenty or thirty miles on foot were nothing to the sturdy boy.
“It was a sad farewell—sadder my mother has often told me, than the actual circumstances really warranted, and many times, on looking back to it, she has thought that some foreboding of the terrible events to come must have been on their spirits.
”‘Good-bye, my faithful little friend,’ were the Countess’s last words to poor Pierre, as he reverently kissed her hand; ‘you are the true son of your good father and mother—I can wish no better thing for you, my boy, than that you may grow up to resemble them.’
”‘My lady,’ said Pierre, the tears coursing down his face, ‘I can never, never thank you for all your goodness to me, but my life—everything I possess—is yours and my little lady’s. I would give my life for you if it would do you good.’