"You have been ill?" he said, to render the pause that followed less
embarrassing.

"Yes; but I'm better now." She supported herself on the table; her
indecision seemed to increase, and several seconds passed before she
said: "Won't you sit down?"

He took one of the stuffed arm-chairs she indicated; and she went back
to the sofa. Again there was silence. With her elbows on her knees, her
chin on her two hands, Louise stared hard at the pattern of the
tablecloth. Maurice sat stiff and erect, waiting for her to tell him
why she had summoned him.

"You will think it strange that I should send for you like this ...
when I know you so slightly," she began at length. "But ...since I saw
you last ... I have been in trouble,"--her voice broke, but her eyes
remained fixed on the cloth. "And I am quite alone. I have no one to
help me. Then I thought of you; you were kind to me once; you offered
to help me." She paused, and wound her handkerchief to a ball.

"Anything!--anything that lies in my power," said Maurice fervently. He
fidgeted his hands round the brim of his hat, which he was holding to
him.

"Won't you tell me what it is?" he asked, after another long break. "I
should be so glad, and grateful--yes, indeed, grateful--if there were
anything I could do for you."

She met his eyes, and tried to say something, but no sound came over
her lips. She was trying to fasten her thoughts on what she had to say,
but, in spite of her efforts, they eluded her. For more than
twenty-four hours she had brooded over one idea; the strain had been
too great; and, now that the moment had come, her strength deserted
her. She would have liked to lay her head on her arms and sleep; it
almost seemed to her now, in the indifference of sheer fatigue, that it
did not matter whether she spoke or not. But as she looked at the young
man, she became conscious of an expression in his face, which made her
own grow hard.

"I won't be pitied."

Maurice turned very red. His heart had gone out to her in her distress;
and his feelings were painted on his face. His discomfiture at her
discovery was so palpable that it gave her courage to go on.

"You were one of those, were you not, who were present at a certain
cafe in the BRUHL, one evening, three weeks ago." It was more of a
statement than a question. Her eyes held him fast. His retreating
colour rose again; he had a presentiment of what was coming.

"Then you must have heard----" she began