As she came near, Marise saw that her sweet face looked anxious and worried. She told them at once that Madame Allen had been taken very ill, that they had been up all night with her and had sent for the doctor early that morning. Papa was startled by this unexpected news, and apparently never dreamed of what occurred to Marise at once, that this was just something they had made up to prevent anybody's talking to her. Marise thought it a good idea. She had hoped something like that could be arranged ... in case those horrible sergents de ville came back again. She was not alarmed by Soeur Ste. Lucie's worried face, because this was by no means the first time that she had observed how easy it was for people's faces to look anything they wished to have them. Papa was asking rather sharply, "What is the matter? What did the doctor say? Is it the effect of nervous shock?" All the same, it was too bad, thought Marise to have Papa worried for nothing. Soeur Ste. Lucie shook her head hurriedly, "Oh, no, something much more acute than that, a terrible, terrible chill which has gone to her lungs. The poor lady must have been in soaking wet clothes, for nobody knows how long. Monsieur has been told of the...." She hesitated and paused. "Yes, yes, I know she was with some one who fell into a river somewhere and was drowned. But did she fall in, too? How did she get wet? Why _weren't_ her clothes changed?" His voice rose as he asked the questions. Soeur Ste. Lucie explained in a low, hurried, agitated voice. "Nobody knows of course just what happened. Perhaps she tried to save the poor fellow. Perhaps she slipped as he did. In any case she was too distraught to think of herself or to realize the danger of going so long in wet clothes. And every one there was so absorbed in the tragedy...! She was all alone among strangers, the poor lady. She must have sat in her dripping garments in the cold train all the way to Lourdes, and then half the night in the unheated station there, waiting for the train. It was terrible. The doctor said it was terrible to think of--weakened with the shock, as she was, and no food!" Papa now said ungently and impatiently, yet as though he were restraining himself, "Well, we must get her home at once, where we can take care of her!" Marise could see that he believed every word that Soeur Ste. Lucie said. But of course Soeur Ste. Lucie hadn't the least intention of letting Papa take Maman away. "I'm afraid that is impossible," she said, "the doctor came back this afternoon, is here now in fact, and says"--her voice broke--"he says she is much too ill to be moved." At this Papa burst out angrily, his face very red, "Why under the heavens didn't you send word of this to her own home? Here I have been there, ever since the morning train, eating my lunch ... with no _idea_ that...."