"Can't you have some one in to help you?" asked practical Esther. "No, m'amzelle, we are so far away. But we do not want any one really. I can do all. I know how to nurse," with evident pride, "but M'amzelle likes to help us, and--and she is not strong, she suffers so." "Does she?" asked Esther sympathetically. "I am so sorry. I noticed she was lame. Does she suffer pain from her lameness?" "Yes, m'amzelle. She had a fall some years ago. You know, I daresay, that M'amzelle Lucille was at one time a famous singer. No? She has not told you? Then perhaps I should not have, but I thought that when she told you her name you would know." "I can keep a secret," said Esther. "I will never mention it if I may not. Why did M'amzelle stop singing and come here?" "Ah, she stopped singing long, long before she came here. She never sang after the great trouble came to her life, when the great English gentleman she was so soon to marry was killed." Esther gave a little cry of horror. "Oh, how dreadful, but--but how--was it an accident?" Anne's tongue was loosened now, he needed no questioning; he had so few opportunities to talk, he could not resist this one, and he wanted every one's sympathy for his beloved mistress. "Yes, it was an accident, a fearful, a cruel accident, and it happened less than a week before the wedding day. They were together at a station waiting for a train, when some one ran against him with so great force he reeled, he lost his balance, he fell forward, right off the platform--the train was just coming in!" Anne's voice died away in an awful impressive silence. "M'amzelle Lucille sprang to catch him--" "Oh!" gasped Esther, in horror. "They saved _her_," he added significantly; "but she was injured, she was lame always from that day, and her eyes were injured. She may be blind, some day--if she lives. He was killed before her eyes." "Oh, poor M'amzelle Leperier," groaned Esther, her heart aching with the tragedy of the terrible story. "I wonder it did not kill her." "It nearly did," said Anne significantly. "And her singing?" "She never sang again, m'amzelle. She says her voice broke with the shock--but it was her heart that broke. She loved him so; it was too cruel, too terrible." "Did you come here to live then?" "No, m'amzelle, not for a long time. We travelled from place to place. M'amzelle Lucille said she would go alone, but my wife and I would not leave her, she was so lonely, so _triste_, she had no one but us. Wherever we went people stared at her and annoyed her so. Very often they recognised her, she was so well known; or they saw she was beautiful, and they knew her story, or found it out, and they had no delicacy, no feeling. We always had to leave. Last year we came here. M'amzelle does not suffer here, except from loneliness, and I think she never will, but it is too lonely for her. I hope you will come to see her, m'amzelle. She likes you, I can see."