'Your poor father, Mr. Strange, lies, I fear, in a very sad and precarious state. He has been placed in the spare bedroom upstairs, and the doctor has been sent for, but cannot well be here for an hour.'
'I am told that my lather is dead,' said the young lady composedly. 'I am very sorry. And what increases my desolation is that he was a heretic.'
'You love him,' whispered Cicely, looking pained and puzzled.
'I have always prayed for him, and I will pray for him still,' said Mirelle. 'He did not know the truth, so his invincible ignorance may save him.'
'You would hardly like to see him now,' suggested Cicely.
'No, perhaps to-morrow.'
'You love him,' persisted Cicely.
'Of course,' answered Mirelle. 'It is my duty. But you must understand that I have not known him except by name till last fortnight. I had not seen him at all till a fortnight ago, when he came to Paris to take me away from the Sacré Coeur.'
The young man had been watching her face intently. He had seemed more pained than Cicely at her want of feeling. Now he drew a long breath, a sigh of relief; these words of Mirelle explained her coldness.
'I am sorry that he is dead,' she went on, 'but he ought not to have married my mother.'