"She was as much to me as I to her," was the quick answer. "She never liked me. She did not like my mother before me. When you told her my name, the day we saw her first, I knew what she thought. So let that go. If I could have done her good, though, I would, Jacqueline."
"She has everything she needs,—a great deal more than we have. She is very happy, Elsie."
"Am not I? Are not you, in spite of your dreadful look? Your look is more terrible than the lady's in the play, just before she killed herself. Is that because Antonine is so well off?"
"I wish that I could be where she is," sighed Jacqueline.
"You? You are tired, Jacqueline. You look ill. You will not be fit for to-morrow. Come to bed. It is late."
As Jacqueline made no reply to this suggestion, Elsie began to reflect upon her words, and to consider wherefore and to whom she had spoken. Not quite satisfied with herself could she have been, for at length she said in quite another manner,—
"You always said, till now, you wished that you might live a hundred years. But it was not because you were afraid to die, you said so, Jacqueline."
"I don't know," was the answer,—sadly spoken, "Don't remind me of things I have said. I seem to have lost myself."
The voice and the words were effectual, if they were intended as an appeal to Elsie. Fain would she now exclude the stage and the play from her thoughts,—fain think and feel with Jacqueline, as it had long been her habit to do.
Jacqueline, however, was not eager to speak. And Elsie must draw yet nearer to her, and make her nearness felt, ere she could hope to receive the thought of her friend. By-and-by these words were uttered, solemn, slow, and dirge-like:—