As for Mme. Daubrel, whose second telegram from Rome had come some hours earlier, she had hurried to her friend to tell her of it, and, to her surprise, had found Mme. Podoi there, who had arrived but a few minutes ago.
Having been told by the Soublaieff's daughter that Mme. Meyrin was as ill as she could be, the ex-Countess Barineff had suddenly started from St. Petersburg without a word of warning to anybody.
The interview between Lise and her mother had been heart-breaking. In seeing her daughter deserted, aged, in danger of her life, she felt changed in her that maternal love which for so long had been only pride; and, in spite of her efforts to seem calm and not agitate the patient, despair was in her face.
Mme. Meyrin had been unable to leave her bed for several days. She had had her little daughter brought to her, and at the moment when Marthe entered the bedroom she was saying to her mother, and pointing to Marie, who was playing with the lace of the pillows:
"You will love her dearly, will you not, when I am no more, and you will rear her strictly as you reared me? But you will not try to make a fine lady of her; try to make of her no more than a happy woman. Above all things, do not marry her where divorce can follow. Divorce, mother, is nothing but a legal prostitution—a sort of challenge to adultery. It is an outrage on the laws of the Church and on modesty. Has any woman the right to pass from the arms of a living husband into those of another husband? Must not the divorced woman's brow redden at the thought of a possible, perhaps of an inevitable meeting between the two men who have possessed her? And her mother's heart, when she has to make two parts of it, one for the children who are no longer hers even in name, and one for those who come to her—must not it bleed mortally? If ever my daughter marries, let it be without the possibility of divorce, I beseech you."
"My dear Lise," said the general's wife, forcing a smile, "I promise to follow your wishes in every respect; but why look so far into the future, why despair? Oh, I am sure you will get better; Marie will have no need of a second mother; you will be here to watch over her, having come forth brave and beautiful from your present trials. You are no longer alone; Alexander and Tekla will soon be here, and who knows but that your husband, ashamed and penitent, will soon return to you? It is an every-day occurrence."
At these last words of her mother, Mme. Meyrin shivered with horror, and in a strange voice said:
"My husband! Never speak of him to me. And your hopes are but dreams. Yes, if God spares me, I shall see Alexander and Tekla again, since the man I deceived has taken pity on me; but it will be too late. I lived for my passion, I die of maternal love. God is full of mercy in His justice."
As she spoke Lise closed her eyes. When she opened them again in a few moments she saw Mme. Daubrel, who had softly drawn near the bed.
"See," she said to her mother, designating her friend with a grateful look, "here is my guardian angel. For four months Marthe has been by me. I owe to her my power to live to see you."