He could not conceive the nature of the event or the
catastrophe which would induce Mademoiselle de Valmassigue, living in a
house full of servants, to bring the news over the fields herself, two
miles, running all the way.
"But why are you in this room?" he whispered, full of awe.
"Of course, I ran up to see, and this child . . . I did not notice it
. . . she followed me. It's that absurd Chevalier," went on Madame
Leonie, looking towards the divan. . . . "Her hair is all come down. You
may imagine she did not stop to call her maid to dress it before she
started. . . Adele, my dear, sit up. . . . He blurted it all out to her
at half-past five in the morning. She woke up early and opened her
shutters to breathe the fresh air, and saw him sitting collapsed on a
garden bench at the end of the great alley. At that hour--you may
imagine! And the evening before he had declared himself indisposed. She
hurried on some clothes and flew down to him. One would be anxious for
less. He loves her, but not very intelligently.
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