She waked to find Louis at her bedside.

"I am holding my seigneurial court to-day," he said.




CHAPTER VI

THE ONE WHO SAW

All day and every day Madelinette's mind kept fastening itself upon one
theme, kept turning to one spot. In her dreams she saw the hanging lamp,
the moving panel, the little cupboard, the fatal paper. Waking and
restlessly busy, she sometimes forgot it for a moment, but remembrance
would come back with painful force, and her will must govern her hurt
spirit into quiet resolution. She had such a sense of humiliation as
though some one dear to her had committed a crime against herself. Two
persons were in her--Madelinette Lajeunesse, the daughter of the village
blacksmith, brought up in the peaceful discipline of her religion,
shunning falsehood and dishonour with a simple proud self-respect; and
Madame Racine, the great singer, who had touched at last the heart of
things; and, with the knowledge, had thrown aside past principles and
convictions to save her stricken husband from misery and humiliation--
to save his health, his mind, his life maybe.

The struggle of conscience and expediency, of principle and womanliness
wore upon her, taking away the colour from her cheeks, but spiritualising
her face, giving the large black eyes an expression of rare intensity, so