"And Aline, you? I looked, and looked, and thought ’t was you, and at last I thought, well, I ’ll risk it. Oh, my dear!" "But I don’t understand. Oh, Marguerite, I thought you were a ghost." "And wondered why I should come here? Well, I ’ve some right to, for my mother was a Montenay. Did you not know it?" "No. But what brings you here, since you are not a ghost, but your very own self?" "Tiens, Aline, I have wished myself any one or anything but myself this last fortnight! You must know that when I was set free—and oh, ma chérie, I heard it was your husband who saved me, and of course that means you——" "Not me," said Aline quickly. "He did it. Who told you?" "The Abbé Loisel. He knows everything—too much, I think! I don’t like him, which is ungrateful, since he got me out of Paris." "Did he? Where did you go then?" "Why, to Switzerland, to Bâle, where I joined my father; and then, then—oh, Aline, do you know I am betrothed?" "My dear, and you are happy?" Marguerite screwed up her face in an unavailing attempt to keep grave, but after a moment burst out laughing. "Why, Aline, he is so droll, and a countryman of your own. Indeed, I believe he is a cousin, for his name is Desmond." "And you like him?" "Oh, I adore him," said Mlle Marguerite calmly. "Aline, if you could see him! His hair—well, it’s rather red; and he has freckles just like the dear little frogs we used to find by the ponds, Jean and I, when we were children; and his eyes are green and droll—oh, but to make you die of laughing——" "He is not handsome, then?" said Aline, laughing too. "Oh no, ugly—but most adorably ugly, and tall, and broad; and oh, Aline, he is nice, and he says that in Ireland I may love him as much as I please, and no one will think it a breach of decorum." "Marguerite, you are just the same, you funny child!" "Well, why not—it’s not so long since we saw each other, is it? Only a few months." "I feel as if it were centuries," said Aline, pressing her hands together. "Ah, that’s because you are married. Ciel! that was a sensation, your marriage. They talked—yes, they talked to split your ears. The things they said——" "And you?" "You are my friend," said Mlle de Matigny with decision. "But I must go on with my story. Well, I was at Bâle and betrothed, and then my father and Monsieur my fiancé set off to join the Princes, leaving me with Mme de Montenay, my great-aunt, who is ever so old, and quite, quite mad!" "Oh, Marguerite!" "Yes, but she is. Imagine being safe in Bâle, and then coming back here, all across France, just because she could not die anywhere but at the Château de Montenay in Rancy-les-Bois." "She has come back?"