Paule vainly searched her mind for help. She felt the sadness of a cemetery round her. What deaths and separations there had been-- Her sister Thérèse dead at twelve; her father struck down in his vigor; her sister Marguerite in a convent; Étienne and François in the Colonies. She was left alone--and how very much alone--to help her mother to bear this too heavy cross. But as she must do it, she would be brave and uphold the poor tottering woman with all her strength. She dried her eyes and bathed her face. “Not now, not all at once,” she repeated, thinking of her mother. “She must have time to warm herself, to rest. I will tell her to-night that he is ill. She did not sleep at all last night, she must sleep at least to-night. To-morrow her heart will be broken. Suffering is easier to bear in the day-time than in the horrors of night, so like the grave. I will not tell her to-night.” And she put her mother’s cup of bitterness away from her. From the far country where he lay she seemed to hear her big brother calling to her--his soul at peace--“Spare her this evening. She has suffered so much already.” She heard a footstep and hastened to hide, the telegram which had brought with it death. Marie entered the room. “Madame is coming. I hear the wheels in the avenue.” CHAPTER III NIOBE “Good evening, Mamma.” Paule called her Mamma when she wished to show her child’s love the most. Madame Guibert came in, stooping a little, wrapped in an old and well-worn fur cloak. The lamp-shade prevented her noticing how pale her daughter was as she kissed her. She came nearer to the fire. “Oh, how good it is to be at home again! And how one loves these old houses! Do you remember, Paule, how sad we were when we thought we should have to leave Le Maupas?” She warmed her wrinkled hands at the flames. Paule came up behind her and took off her bonnet. “Keep your cloak on, Mother dear, for a few minutes. You were very cold, weren’t you?” Madame Guibert turned to look at her daughter. She smiled at her, and the smile under her grey hair, on a face whose cheeks were still young, whose blue eyes were trusting and clear, was as sweet as the last roses of the year, which still bloom under the snow. “Dear child, to look at you warms me more than do these logs that you have put on the fire for me.” The girl knelt down to take the kettle off the fire. “You are going to have some boiling hot grog.” As she got up, her mother had time to notice in the light how pale she was. “But you are the one who should be looked after, Paule. You are quite white. You are ill, and you never told me.” The old lady got up at once.