“You will not fail of your promise to repeat to Madame the Superintendent all that I have confided to you?”
“You have my word,” she answered him. “But of one thing I must warn you—if you send any money, she will send it back!”
“Name of Heaven!—why?” exclaimed Dunoisse.
“Because,” she said, with a slight fold between her arched brown eyebrows, “your friend has been accepted by the Committee as a permanent inmate here, and there is no lack of funds. I must really go now if you will be so good as to release me!”
Dunoisse was still jailer of the hand she had given, and his grip, unconsciously strenuous, was responsible for that fold of pain between the nurse’s eyebrows. He released the hand with penitence and distress, saying:
“I entreat you to forgive me if I have hurt this kind hand, that has alleviated so much pain, and smoothed the pillows of so many death-beds.” But his lips, only shaded by the little upward-brushed black mustache, had barely touched her fingers before she drew them gently from his, saying with a smile:
“There is no need for atonement, M. Dunoisse. As for this kiss upon my hand, I will transfer it with your message of farewell to your dear old governess. My good wishes will follow you with hers, wherever you may go!”
She was gone, moving along the passage and vanishing into a room half way down its length before a bell rang somewhere in the lower regions of the house, a voice spoke to Dunoisse, and he brought back his eyes, that had been questing in search of another, to see the capped and caped and aproned elderly woman, who had a round, brown smiling face, somewhat lined and wrinkled, smooth gray hair, and pleasant eyes of soft dark hazel, waiting to lead him downstairs as she had guided him up. To her he said, as she opened the street-door upon the foggy vista of Cavendish Street:
“Be so good, Madame, as to tell me the name of the Lady Superintendent here?”
The elderly attendant answered promptly: