"I dare not gaze at her except by stealth, and yet she is my mother. Ah, may she never suspect that I know the unhappy secret of my birth." CHAPTER IX. THE PRIVATE INTERVIEW. It was with an expression of almost triumphant satisfaction that Mme. de Beaumesnil watched her maid depart. The poor mother felt sure now of at least an hour alone with her daughter. Thanks to this happiness, a faint flush overspread her pallid cheeks, her dim eyes began to sparkle with a feverish light, and the intense prostration gave place to an unnatural excitement, for the countess was making an almost superhuman effort to profit by this opportunity to talk with her daughter alone. The door had scarcely closed upon the attendant when Madame de Beaumesnil said: "Mademoiselle, will you have the goodness to pour into a cup five or six spoonfuls of that cordial there on the mantel?" "But, madame, you forget that the physician ordered you to take this medicine only in small doses," protested Herminie, anxiously. "At least, it seems to me I heard him give those directions yesterday." "Yes, but I am feeling much better now, and this potion will do me a wonderful amount of good, I think--will give me new strength, in fact." "Madame la comtesse is really feeling better?" asked Herminie, divided between a desire to believe Madame de Beaumesnil and a fear of seeing her deceived as to the gravity of her situation. "You can scarcely credit the improvement I speak of, perhaps. The sad rites you witnessed a few minutes ago frightened you, I suppose, and very naturally. But it was only a precaution on my part, for the consciousness of having fulfilled my religious duties, and of being ready to appear before God, gives me a serenity of soul to which the improved condition of which I speak is doubtless due, at least in some measure. I feel sure, too, that the cordial I asked you for just now, but which you refuse to give me," added Madame de Beaumesnil, smiling, "would do me a great deal of good, and enable me to listen once again to one of the songs which have so often assuaged my sufferings." "As madame insists, I will give her the cordial," said Herminie. And the young girl, reflecting that a larger or smaller dose of the cordial would probably make very little difference, after all, poured four spoonfuls into a cup and handed it to Madame de Beaumesnil. The countess, as she took the cup from Herminie, managed to touch her hand, then, rejoiced to have her daughter so near her, sipped the cordial very slowly and then gave such a sigh of weariness as to almost compel Herminie to ask: "Is madame la comtesse fatigued?" "Rather. It seems to me that if I could sit bolt upright for a little while I should be more comfortable, but I am hardly strong enough to do that." "If madame la comtesse would--would lean upon me," said the young girl, hesitatingly, "it might rest her a little."