"His daughter! Monsieur de Roncherolle acknowledged her as his daughter?"
"Yes, madame, before he died."
"What! Roncherolle is dead?"
"He is dead, madame, and he died asking forgiveness of the friend whom he had so deeply injured."
"Ah! poor Roncherolle! So he is dead! Well, after all, he was wise, for he was in a pitiable plight. And—and—the little flower girl?"
"She is living with the Comte de Brévanne, madame. He has adopted her, and he will never abandon her! Ah! there are few men like the count, and you should be very proud, madame, that you once bore his name!"
Madame de Grangeville could not repress a gesture of annoyance; but she restrained herself, bowed coldly to Monsieur de Merval and hurriedly left him.
Toward the close of the Carnival, which came shortly after, Madame de Grangeville, as the result of wearing a much too décolleté costume at a ball, was seized with inflammation of the lungs; and a week after taking to her bed, she realized that she would never leave it again.
Thereupon a maternal sentiment sprang up in that woman's heart for the first time; for thus far she had lived solely for herself. Hastily writing a few words in a trembling hand, she begged the count to be kind enough to send her daughter to her, as she would like to embrace her before she breathed her last.
But the count said to his wife's messenger: