Perhaps, if Madame had murmured, 'It is quite well--pray permit me to
sleep,' she would have escaped an awkwardness. But having adopted the rôle
of the exhausted slumberer, she could not consistently speak at the moment;
neither would it do by main force, to hold the coverlet about her face, and
so her presence of mind forsook her. Cousin Monica drew it back and hardly
beheld the profile of the sufferer, when her good-humoured face was lined
and shadowed with a dark curiosity and a surprise by no means pleasant. She
stood erect beside the bed, with her mouth firmly shut and drawn down at
the corners, in a sort of recoil and perturbation, looking down upon the
patient.

'So that's Madame de la Rougierre?' at length exclaimed Lady Knollys, with
a very stately disdain. I think I never saw anyone look more shocked.

Madame sat up, very flushed. No wonder, for she had been wrapped so close
in the coverlet. She did not look quite at Lady Knollys, but straight
before her, rather downward, and very luridly.

I was very much frightened and amazed, and felt on the point of bursting
into tears.

'So, Mademoiselle, you have married, it seems, since I had last the honour
of seeing you? I did not recognise Mademoiselle under her new name.'

'Yes--I _am_ married, Lady Knollys; I thought everyone who knew me had
heard of that. Very respectably married, for a person of my rank. I shall
not need long the life of a governess. There is no harm, I hope?'

'I hope not,' said Lady Knollys, drily, a little pale, and still looking
with a dark sort of wonder upon the flushed face and forehead of the