“Oh! say no! say no, darling mother!  You know it would kill me.  Never!  Oh, never!  Eh?”

“Well, I’ll promise it will never be.  Now, be good and lie down.”

For some minutes longer the child, speechless with emotion, clasped her mother in her arms, as though powerless to tear herself away, and intent on guarding her against all who might seek to take her from her.  After some time Helene was able to put her to bed; but for a part of the night she had to watch beside her.  Jeanne would start violently in her sleep, and every half-hour her eyes would open to make sure of her mother’s presence, and then she would doze off again, with her lips pressed to Helene’s hand.

CHAPTER VIII.

It was a month of exquisite mildness.  The April sun had draped the garden in tender green, light and delicate as lace.  Twining around the railing were the slender shoots of the lush clematis, while the budding honeysuckle filled the air with its sweet, almost sugary perfume.  On both sides of the trim and close-shaven lawn red geraniums and white stocks gave the flower beds a glow of color; and at the end of the garden the clustering elms, hiding the adjacent houses, reared the green drapery of their branches, whose little leaves trembled with the least breath of air.

For more than three weeks the sky had remained blue and cloudless.  It was like a miraculous spring celebrating the new youth and blossoming that had burst into life in Helene’s heart.  Every afternoon she went down into the garden with Jeanne.  A place was assigned her against the first elm on the right.  A chair was ready for her; and on the morrow she would still find on the gravel walk the scattered clippings of thread that had fallen from her work on the previous afternoon.

“You are quite at home,” Madame Deberle repeated every evening, displaying for Helene one of those affections of hers, which usually lasted some six months.  “You will come to-morrow, of course; and try to come earlier, won’t you?”

Helene, in truth, felt thoroughly at her ease there.  By degrees she became accustomed to this nook of greenery, and looked forward to her afternoon visit with the longing of a child.  What charmed her most in this garden was the exquisite trimness of the lawn and flower beds.  Not a single weed interfered with the symmetry of the plants.  Helene spent her time there, calmly and restfully.  The neatly laid out flower beds, and the network of ivy, the withered leaves of which were carefully removed by the gardener, could exercise no disturbing influence on her spirit.  Seated beneath the deep shadow of the elm-trees, in this quiet spot which Madame Deberle’s presence perfumed with a faint odor of musk, she could have imagined herself in a drawing-room; and only the sight of the blue sky, when she raised her head, reminded her that she was out-of-doors, and prompted her to breathe freely.