nd holding both her hands in
hers;

"Now, then, Rosalie, tell me all about it," she said, looking her
straight in the face.

Rosalie began to tremble.

"All about what, madame?" she said, timidly.

"Who is the father of your child?" asked Jeanne.

A look of despair came over the maid's face, and she struggled to
disengage her hands from her mistress's grasp, but Jeanne kissed her, in
spite of her struggles, and tried to console her.

"It is true you have been weak," she said, "but you are not the first to
whom such a misfortune has happened, and, if only the father of the
child marries you, no one will think anything more about it; we would
employ him, and he could live here with you."

Rosalie moaned as if she were being tortured, and tried to get her hands
free that she might run away.

"I can quite understand how ashamed you feel," went on Jeanne, "but you
see that I am not angry, and that I speak kindly to you. I wish to know
this man's name for your own good, for I fear, from your grief, that he
means to abandon you, and I want to prevent that. Julien will see him,
and we will make him marry you, and we shall employ you both; we will
see that he makes you happy."

This time Rosalie made so vigorous an effort that she succeeded in
wrenching her hands away from her mistress, and she rushed from the room
as if she were mad.

"I have tried to make Rosalie tell me her seducer's name," said Jeanne
to her husband at dinner that evening, "but I did not succeed in doing
so. Try and see if she will tell you, that we may force the wretch to
marry her."

"There, don't let me hear any more about all that," he said, angrily.
"You wanted to keep this girl, and you have done so, but don't bother me
about her."

He seemed still more irritable since Rosalie's confinement than he had
been before. He had got into the habit of shouting at his wife, whenever
he spoke to her, as if he were always angry, while she, on the contrary,
spoke softly, and did everything to avoid a quarrel; but she often cried
when she was alone in her room at night. In spite of his bad temper,
Julien had resumed the marital duties he had so neglected since his
wedding tour, and it was seldom now that he let three nights pass
without accompanying his wife to her room.

Rosalie soon got quite well again, and with better health came better
spirits, but she always seemed frightened and haunted by some strange
dread. Jeanne tried twice more to make