d beside the handful of wood
ashes, which smouldered on the hearth. And that was all the furniture I
saw, except a bed which filled the farther end of the long narrow room,
and was curtained off so as to form a kind of miserable alcove.

A glance sufficed to show me all this, and that the room was empty,
or apparently empty. Yet I looked again and again, stupefied. At last
finding my voice, I turned to the young man who had brought us hither,
and with a fierce oath demanded of him what he meant.

He shrank back behind the open door, and yet; answered with a kind of
sullen surprise that I had asked for Madame de Bonne's, and this was it.

'Madame de Bonne's!' I muttered. 'This Madame de Bonne's!'

He nodded.

'Of course it is! And you know it!' mademoiselle hissed in my ear, her
voice, as she interposed, hoarse with passion. 'Don't think that you can
deceive us any longer. We know all! This,' she continued, looking round,
her cheeks scarlet, her eyes ablaze with scorn, 'is your mother's,
is it! Your mother who has followed the court hither--whose means are
narrow, but not so small as to deprive her of the privileges of her
rank! This is your mother's hospitality, is it? You are a cheat, sir!
and a detected cheat! Let us begone! Let me go, sir, I say!'

Twice I had tried to stop the current of her words; but in vain. Now
with anger which surpassed hers a hundredfold--for who, being a man,
would hear himself misnamed before his mother?--I succeeded, 'Silence,
mademoiselle!' I cried, my grasp on her wrist. 'Silence, I say! This is
my mother!'

And running forward to the bed, I fell on my knees beside it. A feeble
hand had half withdrawn the curtain, and through the gap my mother's
stricken face looked out, a great fear stamped upon it.

CHAPTER VII. SIMON FLEIX

For some minutes I forgot mademoiselle in paying those assiduous
attentions to my mother which her state and my duty demanded; and which
I offered the more anxiously that I recognised, with a sinking heart,
the changes which age and illness had made in her since my last visit.
The shock of mademoiselle's words had thrown her into a syncope, from
which she did not recover for some time; and then rather through the
assistance of our strange guide, who seemed well aware what to do, than
through my efforts. Anxious as I was to learn what had reduced her
to such straits and such a place, this was not the time to satisfy my
curiosity, and I prepared myself i