A delightful sensation of having come home to a place of safety and shelter came over Aline as she smiled and curtsied, forgetting her poor dress and hard-worked fingers in the pleasure of being restored to the society of her equals. "Sit down here, beside me," commanded Mme de Matigny. She had been a great beauty as well as a great lady in her day, and she spoke with an imperious air that fitted either part. "Marguerite, give Mademoiselle your stool." Aline protested civilly, but Mlle Marguerite, a little dark-eyed creature, with a baby mouth, dropped a soft whisper in her ear as she rose: "Grandmamma is always obeyed—but on the instant," and Aline sat down submissively. "And now, racontez donc, mon enfant, racontez," said the old lady, "where have you been all these months, and how did you escape?" Embarrassing questions these, but to hesitate was out of the question. That would at once point to necessity for concealment. She began, therefore, and told her story quite simply, and truly, only omitting mention of her work with Dangeau. Mme de Matigny tapped her knee. "But, enfin, I do not understand. What is all this? Why did you not appeal to your cousin’s friends, to Mme de St. Aignan, or Mme de Rabutin, for example?" "I knew only the names, Madame," said Aline, lifting her truthful eyes. "And at first I thought all had perished. I dared not ask, and there was no one to tell me." "Poor child," the hand stopped tapping, and patted her shoulder kindly. "And this Rosalie you speak of, what was she?" "Sometimes she was kind. I do not think she meant me any harm, and at least she saved my life once." When she came to the story of her arrest, she faltered a little. The old eyes were so keen. "What do they accuse you of? You have done nothing?" "Oh, chère Comtesse, is it then necessary that one should have done anything?" broke in Adèle de Créspigny, a little bitter colour in that faded voice of hers. "Have you done anything, or I, or little Marguerite here?" Madame fanned herself, her manner slightly distant. She was not accustomed to be interrupted. "They say I wrote letters to emigrés, to my son Charles, in fact. Marguerite also. It is a crime, it appears, to indulge in family feeling. But, you, you, Mademoiselle, did not even do that." "No," said Aline, blushing. "It was ... it was that the Citizen Hébert found out my real name—I do not know how—and denounced me." Her downcast looks filled in enough of the story for those penetrating eyes. "Canaille!" said the old lady under her breath, and then aloud: "You are better here, with us. It is more convenable," and once more she patted the shoulder, and that odd sense of being at home brought sudden tears to Aline’s eyes.