Henri shook his head. "I have no mamma," he answered with a ring of childish pathos in his voice. "She has gone a long, long journey, and no one knows when she will come back. Papa does not like me to talk about her--it makes him so sad. But sometimes I see her in my sleep, and then she looks beautiful, and smiles at me. Some day, perhaps, she will come back to papa and me."
She kissed him passionately, to the boy's wonderment. Then with a half-sob in her voice, she said: "But you have a sister, have you not?"
Henri's large eyes grew larger. "No; I have no sister," he answered with a shake of his head.
"But you had one once, had you not? Does your papa never speak of her?"
"No; never. I had a mamma, but I never had a sister."
For a moment or two Stephanie buried her face on the child's shoulder. What thoughts, what memories of the past, rushed through her brain as she did so? "Cast off and forgotten!" was the mournful cry wrung from her heart.
Suddenly a voice outside was heard calling, "Henri, Henri, où es tu?" followed by a note or two on the pipes and a tap on the drum.
"Papa is calling me; I must go," said the boy.
Stephanie started to her feet, and lifting him in her arms, kissed him wildly again and again. Then setting him down, she pressed some money into his hand and turned away without another word. Henri darted off.
"He is gone--gone--and perhaps I shall never see him again!" She sank on her knees and buried her face in the cushions of the window-seat. Her whole frame shook with the sobs that would no longer be suppressed.