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
efforts to follow the Darbois.
Esperance opened her eyes and seeing beside her only her father and
mother, those two beings whom she loved so deeply, so tenderly, she
reached out her arms and drew close to her their beloved heads.
Maurice had slipped out very quietly. "Papa dearie, Mama beloved,
forgive me, it is not my fault," she sobbed.
"Don't cry, my child, now, not a tear," cried Darbois, bending over
his little girl. "It is settled, you shall be.
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