Her face grew sweetly animated as she bent toward me excitedly and
confidentially.

"Really, she is simply wonderful. I learned to respect her in those
days as I have never respected any other woman in the world; and when,
after all her splendid work, she, so vital and active, was stricken
down like that, I felt that I simply could not leave her, especially as
she asked me to stay."

"So you went with her to Nice?"

"Yes. Then the Colonel took this house, and we came here, but--"

She hesitated, and glanced at me curiously.

"Perhaps you are not quite happy?"

"No," she said, "I am not. You see it was different in France. I knew
so many people. But here at Cray's Folly it is so lonely, and Madame
is--"

Again she hesitated.

"Yes?"

"Well," she laughed in an embarrassed fashion, "I am afraid of her at
times."

"In what way?"