affectionately under the table that the good man's eyes grew wet.

"Ever since then, godfather, I have not cared for you any more."

The atmosphere of the little room seemed suddenly to congeal. The
silence was intense. Adhemar himself remained thunderstruck in his
chair, his tongue dry, his thoughts chaotic, unable to form a reply to
the child's virulent attack. For the sake of breaking up this general
paralysis, Maurice Renaud finally suggested that they should vote upon
the decision to be given to his brave little cousin.

They gathered together around the table and began to talk in low
tones. Esperance had sunk into a chair. Her face was very pale and
great blue circles had appeared around her eyes. The discussion seemed
to be once more in full swing when Maurice startled everyone by
crying, "My God, Esperance is ill!"

The child had fainted, and her head hung limply back. Her golden hair
made an aureola of light around the colourless face with its dead
white lips.

Maurice raised the child in his arms, and Madame Darbois led him
quickly to Esperance's little room where he laid the light form on its
little bed. Francois Darbois moistened her temples quickly with Eau de
Cologne. Madame Darbois supported Esperance's head, holding a little
ether to her nose. As Maurice looked about the little room, as fresh,
as white, as the two pots of marguerites on the mantel-shelf, an
indefinable sentiment swelled up within him. Was it a kind of
adoration for so much purity? Philippe Renaud had remained in the
dining-room where he succeeded in keeping Adhemar, in spite of his