CHAPTER XXXV.
THE MOTHER.
This beautiful, pale, trembling mother: she stood there, dark against the light of the window; but even in the shadow how singularly like she was to Natalie, in the tall, slender, elegant figure, the proud set of the head, the calm, intellectual brows, and the large, tender, dark eyes, as soft and pathetic as those of a doe—only this woman's face was worn and sad, and her hair was silver-gray.
She was greatly agitated, and for a second or two incapable of speech. But when he began in French to apologize for his intrusion, she eagerly interrupted him.
"Ah, no, no!" she said, in the same tongue. "Do not waste words in apology. You have come to tell me about my child, my Natalie: Heaven bless you for it; it is a great kindness. To-day I saw you walking with her—listening to her voice—ah, how I envied you!—and once or twice I thought of going to her and taking her hand, and saying only one word—'Natalushka!'"
"That would have been a great imprudence," said he gravely. "If you wish to speak to your daughter—"
"If I wish to speak to her!—if I wish to speak to her!" she exclaimed; and there were tears in her voice, if there were none in the sad eyes.
"You forget, madame, that your daughter has been brought up in the belief that you died when she was a mere infant. Consider the effect of any sudden disclosure."
"But has she never suspected? I have passed her; she has seen me. I gave her a locket: what did she think?"
"She was puzzled, yes; but how would it occur to the girl that any one could be so cruel as to conceal from her all those years the fact that her mother was alive?"