she exclaimed.

"And have you any hope of success?"

"Yes," replied the girl, remembering her friend, the magistrate.

Moved by a far more powerful emotion than any she had ever known before,
the baroness uttered an exclamation of joy. "Ah! how good you are!" she
exclaimed--"how generous! how noble! You take your revenge in giving me
back life, honor, everything--for you are my daughter; do you not know
it? Did they not tell you, before bringing you here, that I was the
hated and unnatural mother who abandoned you?"

She advanced with tearful eyes and outstretched arms, but Marguerite
sternly waved her back. "Spare yourself, madame, and spare me, the
humiliation of an unnecessary explanation."

"Marguerite! Good God! you repulse me. After all you have promised to do
for me, will you not forgive me?"

"I will try to forget, madame," replied the girl and she was already
stepping toward the door when the baroness threw herself at her feet,
crying, in a heart-rending tone: "Have pity, Marguerite, I am your
mother. One has no right to deny one's own mother."

But the young girl passed on. "My mother is dead, madame; I do not know
you!" And she left the room without even turning her head, without even
glancing at the baroness, who had fallen upon the floor in a deep swoon.

XIX

Baron Trigault still held Madame de Fondege a prisoner in the hall. What
did he say to her in justification of the expedient he had improvised?
His own agitation was so great that he scarcely knew, and it mattered
but little after all, for the good lady did not even pretend to listen
to his apologies. Although by no means overshrewd, she suspected some
great mystery, some bit of scandal, perhaps, and her eyes never once
wandered from the door leading to the boudoir. At last this door opened
and Mademoiselle Marguerite reappeared. "Great heavens!" exclaimed
Madame de Fondege; "what has happened to my poor child?"

For the unfortunate girl advanced with an automatic tread, her eyes
fixed on vacancy, and her hands outstretched, as if feeling her way. It
indeed seemed to her as if the floor swayed to and fro under her feet,
as if the walls tottered, as if the ceiling were about to fall and crush
her.

Madame de Fondege sprang forward. "What is the matter, my dearest?"

Alas! the poor girl was utterly overcome. "It is but a trifle," she
faltered. But her eyes closed, her hands clutched wildly for some
support, and she would have fall