“Your mother? Oh, no! that is impossible; your father will conceal her name from you--he must. If, however, he should disclose it, remember that a heedless word would kill her!--But I have said enough. To-morrow, at daybreak, before anyone in the house is up, you will go away; you promise me that, Louise?” “Yes, madame, I promise.” “That is well; and now, kiss me.” “May I?” Madame de Noirmont’s only reply was to put her arms about Louise’s waist, strain her to her heart, and hold her so a long time, covering her with kisses. The poor girl was so happy that she thought that she was dreaming, and she prayed heaven not to wake her. But Madame de Noirmont, whose eyes were filled with tears, made a superhuman effort, and extricating herself from the arms that enlaced her, deposited one more kiss on the girl’s forehead and hurriedly left the room, saying in a voice overflowing with affection: “Do not forget anything of all that I have said to you!” Louise lay in a sort of trance; the kisses she had received had made her know such unalloyed happiness that she tried to prolong it; she dared not reflect, or seek to solve the mystery of Madame de Noirmont’s conduct; but she repeated again and again: “She loves me! oh, yes! she loves me, for she held me to her heart a long while, and she said: ‘Don’t forget anything that I said to you!’--Ah! I shall never forget those words; I shall remember them all my life.” Louise did not close her eyes during the rest of the night. As soon as the day began to break, she rose, dressed hastily, made a bundle of her clothes, placed in her bosom the letter that Madame de Noirmont had given her, and, softly opening the door, left her room, stole noiselessly through several rooms to the staircase, and so down to the courtyard; she knocked on the concierge’s window, he opened the gate, and at daybreak she stood in the street. XXVI FEAR Since his adventure with Chichette Chichemann, Chérubin had been less quick to take fire; or, rather, he had begun to understand that what he had taken for love was simply those desires which the sight of a pretty woman arouses in a man’s heart; desires which are certain to be renewed often in a wholly inexperienced heart, whose sensations have the charm of novelty.