Mrs. Capelle felt of her hands, her face. "You are feverish. You were in the hot sun too much this afternoon." "Yes; that was it—the sun. Don’t be anxious, mama. It is nothing. Go back to Father Vincent, and I’ll sleep, and be well to-morrow." "But I do not like to leave you." "You must, _chérie_. Remember your guest." "Yes, yes; so I must. I will come up again presently." She stooped to arrange a pillow, and to kiss her, and Madeline raised herself up, threw her arms around her. "My own good, sweet mama, my dear, lovely one!" she murmured. "You do everything for my comfort and happiness. You would not hurt me for the world, would you?" "Hurt you, sweet?" "I know you would not. I—I like to tease you a little. Kiss me good-night, and go. _Poor mama!_" she murmured under her breath, as they held each other, in a love no bond of flesh and blood could have made stronger. "How can I tell her that I know! How can I!" Madeline moaned when left again alone. But she did not have that cruel task, for sometime during that night, while she turned wakefully on her bed, or paced softly about the room, Agnese Capelle received the summons she had been so long expecting. Next morning only her fragile body lay between the white sheets of her bed, the life, the spirit gone. Madeline was strangely calm through all the excitement and confusion following, and went herself to select a sunny open spot in the neglected little cemetery for her mother’s grave. "She loved sunshine," she said to Everett and Father Vincent, "and she wished to be buried here." She preserved the same stony quiet through the funeral and burial, and friends commented and wondered, and Roger watched her anxiously. He felt an indefinable change in her, but attributed it to the shock of her mother’s sudden death. Father Vincent studied him with keen eyes, but could find no fault. He was a manly man, and a tender, considerate lover. It was the third evening after her mother’s burial that Madeline called Father Vincent into the little study adjoining the parlor. The New Orleans lawyer had come up, held a private interview with her, and had gone away again, and she had sent off her wedding trousseau to a young girl in a distant town, and certain things belonging to her mother she had carefully collected and put together. So much Aunt Dilsey, the priest, and a kind old lady who proposed to stay with her a few days knew; but she offered no explanation, and gave no clue to her plans for the future. "She acts for all the world like she didn’t expect to get married, herself," the old lady confided to a friend or two. "I can’t understand what she intends to do."