As she turned away she noticed two little Catholic pictures, such as she had been accustomed in her convent days to carry in her books of devotion, carefully propped up beneath the texts.

“Ah, Therese!” she said to herself, with a sudden feeling of pain.  “Is the child asleep?”

She listened.  A little cough sounded from the neighboring room.  Julie crossed the landing.

“Therese! tu ne dors pas encore?”

A voice said, softly, in the darkness, “Je t’attendais, mademoiselle.”

Julie went to the child’s bed, put down her candle, and stooped to kiss her.

The child’s thin hand caressed her cheek.

“Ah, it will be good—­to be in Bruges—­with mademoiselle.”

Julie drew herself away.

“I sha’n’t be there to-morrow, dear.”

“Not there!  Oh, mademoiselle!”

The child’s voice was pitiful.

“I shall join you there.  But I find I must go to Paris first.  I—­I have some business there.”

“But maman said—­”

“Yes, I have only just made up my mind.  I shall tell maman to-morrow morning,”

“You go alone, mademoiselle?”

“Why not, dear goose?”

“Vous etes fatiguee.  I would like to come with you, and carry your cloak and the umbrellas.”

“You, indeed!” said Julie.  “It would end, wouldn’t it, in my carrying you—­besides the cloak and the umbrellas?”

Then she knelt down beside the child and took her in her arms.

“Do you love me, Therese?”

The child drew a long breath.  With her little, twisted hands she stroked the beautiful hair so close to her.

“Do you, Therese?”

A kiss fell on Julie’s cheek.

“Ce soir, j’ai beaucoup prie la Sainte Vierge pour vous!” she said, in a timid and hurried whisper.

Julie made no immediate reply.  She rose from her knees, her hand still clasped in that of the crippled girl.

“Did you put those pictures on my mantel-piece, Therese?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The child hesitated.

“It does one good to look at them—­n’est-ce pas?—­when one is sad?”

“Why do you suppose I am sad?”

Therese was silent a moment; then she flung her little skeleton arms round Julie, and Julie felt her crying.

“Well, I won’t be sad any more,” said Julie, comforting her.  “When we’re all in Bruges together, you’ll see.”

And smiling at the child, she tucked her into her white bed and left her.

Then from this exquisite and innocent affection she passed back into the tumult of her own thoughts and plans.  Through the restless night her parents were often in her mind.  She was the child of revolt, and as she thought of the meeting before her she seemed to be but entering upon a heritage inevitable from the beginning.  A sense of enfranchisement, of passionate enlargement, upheld her, as of a life coming to its fruit.