"Madame, Madame! qu'y a-t-il? qu'avez-vous?"
Persis turned her head dolefully toward the face so wild with anxiety for her sake, and murmured, with a smile of affection and a tender form of speech:
"C'est toi, Nichette? Ce n'est rien, mais—mais"—A shiver ran through her. "Je sentis des frissons. Va faire mon lit. Je me vais coucher."
Nichette came forward unconvinced or to help her, but she motioned her off with a frantic hand, crying impatiently, "Dépêche-toi! veux-tu te dépêcher!"
And Nichette, mutinously obedient, ran away, leaving Persis shivering indeed with a chill.
And now husband and wife were alone once more. And Willie could only stare and murmur, vacuously:
"What have I done? What have I done?"
"You've killed me, that's all," she answered, with a curious amusement. "It was such a funny thing for you to do, so old-fashioned."
There is a strange fact about wounds in the heart. If they are not so deep that they flood the lungs and smother out life they inspire a wild desire to talk, a fluttering garrulity.