“Do not stay here, Mademoiselle!” he cried. “There is—there is yellow fever.”
“So that is it,” said Antoinette, unheeding him and looking at her cousin. “She has yellow fever, then?”
“I beg you to come away, Mademoiselle!” the man entreated.
“Please go,” she said to him. He looked at her, and went out silently, closing the doors after him. “Why was he here?” she asked again.
“He came to get Mr. Temple, my dear,” said the Vicomtesse. The girl's lips framed his name, but did not speak it.
“Where is he?” she asked slowly.
The Vicomtesse pointed towards the bedroom.
“In there,” she answered, “with his mother.”
“He came to her?” Antoinette asked quite simply.
The Vicomtesse glanced at me, and drew the veil gently from the girl's shoulders. She led her, unresisting, to a chair. I looked at them. The difference in their ages was not so great. Both had suffered cruelly; one had seen the world, the other had not, and yet the contrast lay not here. Both had followed the gospel of helpfulness to others, but one as a religieuse, innocent of the sin around her, though poignant of the sorrow it caused. The other, knowing evil with an insight that went far beyond intuition, fought with that, too.