“God bless you, ma’am,” said the servant, still much agitated, and left her.

Mr. Marston usually passed the early part of the day in active exercise, and she, supposing that he was, in all probability, at that moment far from home, went to “mademoiselle’s” chamber, which was at the other end of the spacious house, to confer with her in the interval upon the strange application thus urged by poor Merton.

Just as she reached the door of Mademoiselle de Barras’s chamber, she heard voices within exerted in evident excitement.  She stopped in amazement.  They were those of her husband and mademoiselle.  Startled, confounded, and amazed, she pushed open the door, and entered.  Her husband was sitting, one hand clutched upon the arm of the chair he occupied, and the other extended, and clenched, as it seemed, with the emphasis of rage, upon the desk that stood upon the table.  His face was darkened with the stormiest passions, and his gaze was fixed upon the Frenchwoman, who was standing with a look half-guilty, half-imploring, at a little distance.

There was something, to Mrs. Marston, so utterly unexpected, and even so shocking, in this tableau, that she stood for some seconds pale and breathless, and gazing with a vacant stare of fear and horror from her husband to the French girl, and from her to her husband again.  The three figures in this strange group remained fixed, silent, and aghast, for several seconds.  Mrs. Marston endeavored to speak; but, though her lips moved, no sound escaped her; and, from very weakness, she sank, half-fainting, into a chair.

Marston rose, throwing, as he did so, a guilty and furious glance at the young Frenchwoman, and walked a step or two toward the door; he hesitated, however, and turned, just as mademoiselle, bursting into tears, threw her arms round Mrs. Marston’s neck, and passionately exclaimed, “Protect me, madame, I implore, from the insults and suspicions of your husband.”

Marston stood a little behind his wife, and he and the governess exchanged a glance of keen significance, as the latter sank, sobbing, like an injured child into its mother’s embrace, upon the poor lady’s tortured bosom.

“Madame, madame! he says—­Mr. Marston says—­I have presumed to give you advice, and to meddle, and to interfere; that I am endeavoring to make you despise his authority.  Madame, speak for me.  Say, madame, have I ever done so?—­say, madame, am I the cause of bitterness and contumacy?  Ah, mon Dieu! c’est trop—­it is too much, madame.  I shall go—­I must go, madame.  Why, ah! why, did I stay for this?”

As she thus spoke, mademoiselle again burst into a paroxysm of weeping, and again the same significant glance was interchanged.