Yet both their lives had been engrossed by the same thought, and anxiety upon the same subject still filled their days with dread, and robbed their nights of sleep. So when Aloyse, coming hurriedly into the room, would have bowed low before Madame de Castro, Diane threw herself into the good woman's arms, and warmly embraced her, saying as she used to say in the old days,-- "Dear nurse!" "What, Madame!" exclaimed Aloyse, moved to tears, "do you really remember me? Do you recognize me?" "Do I remember you! do I recognize you!" returned Diane; "you might as well ask me if I remember Enguerrand's house, or if I would recognize the Château de Montgommery!" Meanwhile Aloyse with clasped hands was looking at Diane more attentively. "How beautiful you are!" she cried, sighing and smiling at once. She smiled, for she had dearly loved the young girl who had developed into the beautiful lady before her. She sighed, for as she dwelt upon her lovely features she could better estimate Gabriel's wretchedness. Diane understood this look, which was both melancholy and enraptured, and hastened to say, with a slight blush,-- "I have not come to talk of myself, nurse." "Is it of him, then?" said Aloyse. "Of whom else, pray? for to you I can lay bare my heart. How unfortunate that I did not find him! I came to console him and myself at the same time. How is he? Always dejected and despairing, is he not? Why has he not been once to the Louvre to see me? What does he say? What is he doing? Tell me, oh, pray tell me, nurse!" "Alas! Madame," replied Aloyse, "you are quite right in thinking that he is dejected and despairing. Imagine--" Diane interrupted her. "Wait a moment, good Aloyse," said she; "before you begin I have a word to say. I could stay here till to-morrow listening to you, you know, without growing weary, or without noticing the flight of time. But I must return to the Louvre before my absence is noticed. So promise me one thing: when I have been here an hour, whether he has returned or not, tell me so, and send me away." "But, Madame," said Aloyse, "I am quite capable of forgetting the hour myself, and I should not grow weary of talking to you any sooner than you would of listening to me, you see." "What can we do, then?" asked Diane. "I dread the effect of our combined weakness." "Let us intrust the difficult duty to some third person," said Aloyse. "The very thing! André." The page, who had remained in an adjoining room, undertook to rap at the door when an hour had passed. "And now," said Diane, taking her seat by the nurse's side, "we can talk at our ease, and tranquilly, if not joyfully." But this interview, though of the deepest interest to these two afflicted creatures, was nevertheless full of difficulty and bitterness. In the first place, neither of them knew how far the other was cognizant of the terrible secrets of the Montgommery family.