“Hope has been cruel to me,” replied M. Grandissime, “not you; that I cannot say.  Adieu.”

He was turning.

“’Sieur Grandissime—­”

She seemed to tremble.

He stood still.

“‘Sieur Grandissime,”—­her voice was very tender,—­“wad you’ horry?”

There was a great silence.

“’Sieur Grandissime, you know—­teg a chair.”

He hesitated a moment and then both sat down.  The servant repassed the door; yet when Aurora broke the silence, she spoke in English—­having such hazardous things to say.  It would conceal possible stammerings.

“’Sieur Grandissime—­you know dad riz’n I—­”

She slightly opened her fan, looking down upon it, and was still.

“I have no right to ask the reason,” said M. Grandissime.  “It is yours—­not mine.”

Her head went lower.

“Well, you know,”—­she drooped it meditatively to one side, with her eyes on the floor,—­“’tis bick-ause—­’tis bick-ause I thing in a few days I’m goin’ to die.”

M. Grandissime said never a word.  He was not alarmed.

She looked up suddenly and took a quick breath, as if to resume, but her eyes fell before his, and she said, in a tone of half-soliloquy: 

“I ‘ave so mudge troub’ wit dad hawt.”

She lifted one little hand feebly to the cardiac region, and sighed softly, with a dying languor.

M. Grandissime gave no response.  A vehicle rumbled by in the street below, and passed away.  At the bottom of the room, where a gilded Mars was driving into battle, a soft note told the half-hour.  The lady spoke again.

“Id mague”—­she sighed once more—­“so strange,—­sometime’ I thing I’m git’n’ crezzy.”

Still he to whom these fearful disclosures were being made remained as silent and motionless as an Indian captive, and, after another pause, with its painful accompaniment of small sounds, the fair speaker resumed with more energy, as befitting the approach to an incredible climax: 

“Some day’, ’Sieur Grandissime,—­id mague me fo’gid my hage!  I thing I’m young!”

She lifted her eyes with the evident determination to meet his own squarely, but it was too much; they fell as before; yet she went on speaking: 

“An’ w’en someboddie git’n’ ti’ed livin’ wid ‘imsev an’ big’n’ to fill ole, an’ wan’ someboddie to teg de care of ‘im an’ wan’ me to gid marri’d wid ’im—­I thing ’e’s in love to me.”  Her fingers kept up a little shuffling with the fan.  “I thing I’m crezzy.  I thing I muz be go’n’ to die torecklie.”  She looked up to the ceiling with large eyes, and then again at the fan in her lap, which continued its spreading and shutting.  “An’ daz de riz’n, ’Sieur Grandissime.”  She waited until it was certain he was about to answer, and then interrupted him nervously:  “You know, ’Sieur Grandissime, id woon be righd!  Id woon be de juztiz to you! An’ you de bez man I evva know in my life, ’Sieur Grandissime!” Her hands shook.  “A man w’at nevva wan’ to gid marri’d wid noboddie in ’is life, and now trine to gid marri’d juz only to rip-ose de soul of ’is oncl’—­”