"Certainly, mademoiselle, if it is your wish," answered the widow, now smiling blandly. "If it please you to be blind, I have no desire to remove the bandage from your eyes. Seulement, je vous prie de me pardonner mon indiscrétion, et j'ai l'honneur, mademoiselle, de vous dire adieu!"
With the lowest of révérences madame glided from the room, and, as the door closed, Nina bowed her head on the miniature left behind in the déroute, and burst into tears.
Scarcely had la Mélusine's barouche rolled away, when another visitor was shown in, and Nina, brushing the tears from her cheeks, looked up hurriedly, and saw a small woman, finely dressed, with a Shetland veil on, through which her small black eyes roved listlessly.
"Mademoiselle," she said, in very quick but very bad English, "I is come to warn you against dat ver wrong man, Mr. Vaughan. I have like him, helas! I have like him too vell, but I do not vish you to suffer too."
Nina knew the voice in a moment, and rose like a little empress, though she was flushed and trembling. "I wish to hear nothing of Mr. Vaughan. If this is the sole purport of your visit, I shall be obliged by your leaving me."
"But mademoiselle——"
"I have told you I wish to hear nothing," interposed Nina, quietly.
"Ver vell, ma'amselle; den read dat. It is a copy, and I got de original."
She laid a letter on the sofa beside Nina. Two minutes after, Bluette joined her friend Céline Gamelle in a fiacre, and laughed heartily, clapping her little plump hands. "Ah, mon Dieu! Céline, comme elle est fière, la petite! Je ne lui ai pas dit un seul mot—elle m'a arrêtée si vite, si vite! Mais la lettre fera notre affaire n'est pas? Oui, oui!"
The letter unfolded in Nina's hand. It was a promise of marriage from Ernest Vaughan to Bluette Lemaire. Voiceless and tearless, Nina sat gazing on the paper: first she rose, gasping for breath; then she threw herself down, sobbing convulsively, till she heard a step, caught up the miniature and letter, dreading to see her father, and, instead, saw Ernest, pale, worn, deep lines round his mouth and eyes, standing in the doorway. Involuntarily she sprang towards him. Ernest pressed her to heart, and his hot tears fell on the chevelure dorée, as he bent over her, murmuring, "You have not deserted me. God bless you for your noble faith." At last he put her gently from him, and, leaning against the mantelpiece, said, with an effort, between his teeth, "Nina, I came to bid you farewell, and to ask your forgiveness for the wrong I have done you."