and it was not in her power to solve enigmas, so she answered nothing.

"My uncle was terribly afflicted," said the lady.

"Your uncle?"

Hedwig's incredulous tone implied that she had not believed in the
authenticity of the telegram.

"Yes; my granduncle. He was within an ace of dying, and the shock made
me so bad, after nursing him toward recovery, it was I who stood in
peril of death. My friends sent for a priest and I confessed."

The girl opened her eyes in wonder and a kind of derision, for she did
not belong to the aristocratic creed.

"Confessed?" reiterated she; "ah, yes; people confess when they are very
bad. Was it a complete confession, madame?" she saucily inquired.

"Complete as all believers should make when on the brink of the grave,"
replied Madame Clemenceau, in her gravest tone to repress the tendency
to frivolity, for she had not resented the incredulity as regarded
herself.

"I dare say," said Hedwig, who certainly had one of her lucid intervals,
"it is as when a body is traveling, one is in such a hurry that
something is forgotten. You went away so sharply that you forgot to say
good-bye to the master! if you spoke at all! Whatever did the
father-confessor say?"