She too would be glad--she too had been anxious. The
prodigal made no answer. He could not speak, his heart sank within him,
he grew cold and pale; to inflict pain on those who loved him was a
sharper pain than death.
"Gustave!" cried the mother, in sudden alarm, "thou growest pale--thou
art ill! Look then, Francois, thy son is ill!"
"No, mother, I am not ill," the young man replied gravely. He kissed his
mother, and put her gently away from him. In all the years of her
after-life she remembered that kiss, cold as death, for it was the
farewell kiss of her son.
"I wish to speak a few words with you alone, father," said Gustave.
The father was surprised, but in no manner alarmed by this request. He
led the way to his den, a small and dingy chamber, where there were some
dusty editions of the French classics, and where the master of Beaubocage
kept accounts and garden-seeds and horse-medicines.
When they were gone, the mother and sister sat by one of the open
windows, waiting for them. Without all was still. Distant lights
glimmered through the summer twilight, the lighted windows of Cotenoir.
"How pleased Madelon will be," said Cydalise, looking towards those
glimmering windows. She had really taught herself to believe that the
demoiselle Frehlter was a most estimable young person; but she would have
been glad to find more enthusiasm, more brightness and vivacity, in her
future sister-in-law.
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