that I have wronged you. I am going to leave you, here, without money,
without"--and she hesitated--"without a father," she added, and at the
word she burst into tears and put the boy from her gently. A sort of
intuition told Louis that his mother wished to be alone, and he
carried off Marie, now half awake. An hour later, when his brother was
in bed, he stole down and out to the summer-house where his mother was
sitting.

"Louis! come here."

The words were spoken in tones delicious to his heart. The boy sprang
to his mother's arms, and the two held each other in an almost
convulsive embrace.

"_Cherie_," he said at last, the name by which he often called her,
finding that even loving words were too weak to express his feeling,
"_cherie_, why are you afraid that you are going to die?"

"I am ill, my poor darling; every day I am losing strength, and there
is no cure for my illness; I know that."

"What is the matter with you?"

"Something that I ought to forget; something that you must never know.
--You must not know what caused my death."

The boy was silent for a while. He stole a glance now and again at his
mother; and she, with her eyes raised to the sky, was watching the
clouds. It was a sad, sweet moment. Louis could not believe that his
mother would die soon, but instinctively he felt trouble which he