e was alone. She saw Papillon, who was sitting
up, looking at her with a world of sympathy in the cock of his ear.

Suddenly Brigit burst into tears, nervous, hysterical, noisy sobbing, as
she had done that day in the olive grove at the Villa Arcadie. She had
been living under great nervous strain for months, and these breakdowns
were of appalling violence. She _could_ not stop crying, and she could
not reason and tell herself that he would come back and forgive her.

All she could realise was her hideous misery and sense of desolation.
She was utterly alone, she was hungry, she was cold, she was hopeless.

Presently someone touched her shoulder very gently. It was Felicite.

"What is it, my dear?" the elder woman asked. "What has happened?"

And Brigit, too unstrung to tell the usual conventional lies, simply
sobbed on, her whole body shaking with agony.

Madame Joyselle sat patiently by her, stroking her shoulders with a kind
hand, murmuring little broken phrases in French, patting her hair.

"_Oui, oui, ma mie--Pauvre petite, ca te soulagera--Pleures, ma cocotte,
pleures!_"

And at last the girl was quiet, and reached for her handkerchief.

"I--I am sorry to have been so idiotic, I don't know why I am such a
fool----"

Felicite smoothed back her wet hair and smiled at her.

"Poor child," she answered quietly. "I am so sorry. I have seen it for
some time----"

Brigit stared at her.

"Seen--?"

"That you have fallen in love with Victor. It is really too bad of him,
the old rascal."

Her gentle face was so undisturbed, so calmly acceptant of the heinous
fact that Brigit could do nothing but stare. "I am glad poor Theo does
not suspect," went on Felicite, untying the strings of her old-fashioned
bonnet, "we must not let him know, _n'est ce pas_?"

"I--I don't see----" stammered the girl, blankly.

"No, he must not know. Nor Victor either, if we can help it. Though he
is very vain, and vain men always see. On the whole," she added with a
kind of gentle amusement, "you have all been absurdly blind but me. And
I did not like to warn you."

"This is--very extraordinary," began Brigit, rising. "I don't quite
see----"

But Felicite drew her down to her chair again. "That is just it, _ma
pauvre petite_. I did see. I saw his little fancy for you, too. It began
the evening of the dragon-skin frock, and it lasted, oh--about a month.
And you never noticed it, poor child. And now you are miserable about
him.