that her mother would come to her.

The Marquise entered, having jumped from her bed at the first words
of the chambermaid, for a suspicion had possessed her, heart since
that cry: "Mamma!" heard in the dark.

"What is the matter?" she said.

Yvette looked at her and stammered: "I--I--" Then overpowered by a
sudden and terrible emotion, she began to choke.

The Marquise, astonished, again asked: "What in the world is the
matter with you?"

Then, forgetting all her plans and prepared phrases, the young girl
hid her face in both hands and stammered:

"Oh! mamma! Oh! mamma!"

Madame Obardi stood by the bed, too much affected thoroughly to
understand, but guessing almost everything, with that subtile
instinct whence she derived her strength. As Yvette could not speak,
choked with tears, her mother, worn out finally and feeling some
fearful explanation coming, brusquely asked:

"Come, will you tell me what the matter is?"

Yvette could hardly utter the words: "Oh! last night--I saw--your
window."

The Marquise, very pale; said: "Well? what of it?"

Her daughter repeated, still sobbing: "Oh! mamma! Oh! mamma!"

Madame Obardi, whose fear and embarrassment turned to anger,
shrugged her shoulders and turned to go. "I really believe that you
are crazy. When this ends, you will let me know."

But the young girl, suddenly took her hands from her face, which was
streaming with tears.

"No, listen, I must speak to you, listen. You must promise me--we
must both go, away, very far off, into the country, and we must live
like the country people; and no one must know what has become of us.
Say you will, mamma; I beg you, I implore you; will you?"

The Marquise, confused, stood in the middle of the room. She had in
her veins the irascible blood of the common people. Then a sense of
shame, a mother's modesty, mingled with a vague sentiment of fear
and the exasperation of a passionate woman whose love is threatened,
and she shuddered, ready to ask for pardon, or to yield to some
violence.

"I don't understand you," she said.

Yvette replied:

"I saw you, mamma, last night. You cannot--if you knew--we will both
go away. I will love you so much that you will forget--"

Madame Obardi said in a trembling voice: "Listen, my daughter,
there are some things which you do not yet understand. Well, don't
forget--don't forget-that I forbid you ever to speak to me about
those things."

But the young girl, brusquely taking t