"It will satisfy me, but not him who employs me. If I disobey him I may lose this place which is my only shelter." Edmé caught a glimpse of a neat sitting-room through a half-open door. The cool and quiet of the house were doubly attractive after the noise and heat of the city streets.
"We must stay here," she whispered to Agatha. The latter opened her purse.
"We will pay you well," she said persuasively. The citizeness shook her head mournfully, and put one hand upon the handle of the door.
"Stay one moment, I implore you!" exclaimed Edmé impulsively. "Listen to what I have to say."
The citizeness turned her strange eyes upon Edmé. The latter started as she beheld the expression on the pale face.
"Agatha! look!" Edmé cried out in alarm, and the next instant the Citizeness Privat had fallen to the floor. Quickly Edmé bent over her. "She has fainted. How cold her hands are! Look at her face. It is ghastly. It cannot be that she is dead, Agatha?" Edmé continued in a tone of awe.
Agatha took one hand and began to chafe it to restore the circulation while Edmé rubbed the other. "She is breathing," said Agatha. "Perhaps with your assistance, mademoiselle, we can lift and carry her into one of the rooms."
Between them the Citizeness Privat was carried gently into her room and placed upon a bed. To their intense relief, the woman gave a sigh, and opened her eyes as she sank back on the pillows.
"Are you in great suffering, poor creature?" asked Edmé, compassionately surveying the pale features. Citizeness Privat signed that she was not in any pain, and after a few moments, during which her breath came regularly, she said faintly:—
"I shall be better soon; I am used to these attacks of sudden giddiness. My greatest fear is that they may seize me some day while I am in the streets. For that reason I dread to go out alone."