Suppose, she thought, M. de Cymier should have been asked to dinner; suppose she should be placed next to him at table? Anything in that house seemed possible now.
They brought her a cup of tea. Up to a late hour she heard a confused noise of music and laughter. She did not try to sleep. All her faculties were on the alert, like those of a prisoner who is thinking of escape. She knew what time the night trains left the station, and, abandoning her trunk and everything else that she had with her, she furtively—but ready, if need were, to fight for her liberty with the strength of desperation—slipped down the broad stairs over their thick carpet and pushed open a little glass door. Thank heaven! people came in and went out of that house as if it had been a mill. No one discovered her flight till the next morning, when she was far on her way to Paris in an express train. Modeste, quite unprepared for her young mistress's arrival, was amazed to see her drop down upon her, feverish and excited, like some poor hunted animal, with strength exhausted. Jacqueline flung herself into her nurse's arms as she used to do when, as a little girl, she was in what she fancied some great trouble, and she cried: "Oh, take me in—pray take me in! Keep me safe! Hide me!" And then she told Modeste everything, speaking rapidly and disconnectedly, thankful to have some one to whom she could open her heart. In default of Modeste she would have spoken to stone walls.
"And what will you do now, my poor darling?" asked the old nurse, as soon as she understood that her young lady had come back to her, "with weary foot and broken wing," from what she had assured her on her departure would be a brilliant excursion.
"Oh! I don't know," answered Jacqueline, in utter discouragement; "I am too worn out to think or to do anything. Let me rest; that is all."
"Why don't you go to see your stepmother?"
"My stepmother? Oh, no! She is at the bottom of all that has happened to me."
"Or Madame d'Argy? Or Madame de Talbrun? Madame de Talbrun is the one who would give you good advice."
Jacqueline shook her head with a sad smile.
"Let me stay here. Don't you remember—years ago—but it seems like yesterday—all the rest is like a nightmare—how I used to hide myself under your petticoats, and you would say, going on with your knitting: 'You see she is not here; I can't think where she can be.' Hide me now just like that, dear old Modeste. Only hide me."
And Modeste, full of heartfelt pity, promised to hide her "dear child" from every one, which promise, however, did not prevent her, for she was very self-willed, from going, without Jacqueline's knowledge, to see Madame de Talbrun and tell her all that had taken place. She was hurt and amazed at her reception by Giselle, and at her saying, without any offer of help or words of sympathy, "She has only reaped what she has sown." Giselle would have been more than woman had not Fred, and a remembrance of the wrongs that he had suffered through Jacqueline, now stood between them. For months he had been the prime object in her life; her mission of comforter had brought her the greatest happiness she had ever known. She tried to make him turn his attention to some serious work in life; she wanted to keep him at home, for his mother's sake, she thought; she fancied she had inspired him with a taste for home life. If she had examined herself she might have discovered that the task she had undertaken of doing good to this young man was not wholly for his sake but partly for her own. She wanted to see him nearly every day and to occupy a place in his life ever larger and larger. But for some time past the conscientious Giselle had neglected the duty of strict self- examination. She was thankful to be happy—and though Fred was a man little given to self-flattery in his relations with women, he could not but be pleased at the change produced in her by her intercourse with him.