"Yesterday," she confided, "I was unhappy; it seemed too far to come-- I was afraid, from something Marthy said, that I wasn't going to find Maman--she said I mustn't set my heart on it--" Margot sighed. She came close to the bed and took Felicia's hands in hers. "Listen carefully," she entreated, "the thing I have to tell you is hard. You see when Octavia went away from you she did not come here, she--" "Where did she go?" demanded Felicia sitting bolt upright. "She went--" Margot's throaty voice dragged painfully, "She went where all good women go when their work is done--" "Her work wasn't done," objected Felice. "She said it would be a great deal of work to build the garden over, she said she was afraid it would be all weeds--Piqueur was so old--she said--Oh! why are you weeping, Margot?" "When she went away from me first," moaned Margot, "I thought I could never stand it--it was so still and so lonely here in the woods without her--and now, after all these years that I have learned to live without her--it is as if she had gone away again to have to try-- to tell you--" she knelt at the bedside, her lips moved piteously. "Try to understand, little one, she is gone--neither you nor I can find her--" "Nor the Major?" asked Felicia incredulously. "The Major least of all," said Margot firmly. "She is not--" "Not what?" demanded Felicia.. She was sitting on the edge of the bed now looking very little in the ancient dressing gown. "She is not living any more," sighed Margot. There was a long pause, a pause in which the drone of Piqueur's voice, still singing Maitre Guedron's old song, floated through the open casement. "Not living?" questioned Felicia, her eyes widening with frightened-- comprehension--"Oh! Oh!" her voice rose tempestuously, angrily, "You shall not say such dreadful things! They are not true! The Major said we should come to this house in the Woods, he said--" she paused, her mind groped back over the years. The rising tide of her anger swept her fear that this strange woman was telling the truth farther and farther out of her thoughts. She rose, absurdly majestic as she steadied herself with one slender arm against the quaint carved post of the bed. She pointed toward the doorway. "You'd better go away, Margot," she ordered clearly, "You can't stay here and talk so to me--" the childish simplicity of her phrases was absurdly inadequate to express her scorn, "You do not know that I have a vairee bad temper--I make myself proud, proud, proud when I lose it --but it will make you vairee unhappy if I do--I say and I do most dreadful things when I'm angry--If I call for the Major he will come and send you away--for always and forevaire--as he did Mademoiselle D'Ormy--and no matter how sorry I am afterward he will not let you stay--"