But Mary, on her side, was rather unwilling to leave the salon. She was frightened to see to what lengths Bertha's love had developed within the last few days; every word her sister said echoed painfully in her soul. She felt sure that Michel's love was wholly her own, and she thought with actual terror of Bertha's despair when she should discover how strangely she had deceived herself. Besides, in spite of Mary's immense affection for her sister, love had already poured into her heart the little dose of selfishness which always accompanies that emotion, and she was quite joyful, from another point of view, at what she was now hearing. The part which Bertha was tracing out for the wife of Michel she felt should be her own. So it happened that Bertha was obliged to ask her for the second time to see what Rosine wanted. "Go, dearest," she said, kissing Mary's forehead, "go; and while you are there please give orders about preparing Monsieur Loriot's room; for I fear, in all this turmoil, it has been forgotten." Mary was accustomed to obey, and she obeyed. Of the two sisters, she was by far the most docile and gentle. She found Rosine at the door. "What do you want of us?" she asked. Rosine did not reply. Then, as if she feared to be overheard from the dining-room, where the marquis was narrating the last day of Charette's life, she took Mary by the arm and drew her under the staircase at the farther end of the vestibule. "Mademoiselle," she said, "he is hungry." "He is hungry?" repeated Mary. "Yes; he has just told me so." "Who is it you are talking of? Who is hungry?" "He, the poor lad." "Who is he?" "Why, Monsieur Michel." "Monsieur Michel here!" "Didn't you know it?" "No." "Two hours ago--after Mademoiselle Bertha returned from the chapel, just before the soldiers arrived--he came to the kitchen." "Didn't he go away with Petit-Pierre?" "No." "And you say he went to the kitchen?" "Yes; and he was so tired, it was quite pitiful. 'Monsieur Michel,' I said like that, 'why don't you go into the salon?' 'My dear Rosine,' said he, in his gentle way, 'they didn't ask me.' Then he wanted to go and sleep at Machecoul, for he said he wouldn't go back to La Logerie for all the world. It seems his mother meant to take him to Paris. So I wouldn't let him leave the house." "You did quite right, Rosine. Where is he now?" "I put him in the tower chamber; but as the soldiers have taken the ground-floor, we can't get in there now except through the passage at the end of the hay-loft, and I came to ask you for the key." Mary's first thought (it was her good thought) was to tell her sister; but a second thought succeeded the first, and that, it must be owned, was less generous. It was no other than to see Michel first and alone. Rosine gave her the opportunity. "I'll tell you where the key is," said Mary.