“Why should I not, eh?” demanded the woman, indignantly. “Is it not my own family, yes? What is Pierre but one son? I love him, oh, yes! But--” [Illustration: “WHERE IS MY FATHER?”] “You adore him, bad and trying as he is. But there is something you must tell me, if you know it. Maybe you do not. I did not, till that awful morning when he was taken ill. But that very minute he told me what I had never dreamed. I was angry; for a moment I almost hated him because he had deceived me, though afterward I knew that he had done it for the best and would tell me why when he could. So I’ve tried to trust him just the same and be patient. But--he may never be able--and I must know. Angelique, where is my father?” The housekeeper was so startled that she dropped the plate she was wiping and broke it. Yet even at that fresh omen of disaster she could not remove her gaze from the girl’s face nor banish the dismay of her own. “He told--you--that--that--” “That my father is still alive. He would, I think, have told me more; all that there may be yet to tell, if he had not so suddenly been stricken. Where is my father?” “Oh, child, child! Don’t ask me. It is not for me--” “If Uncle cannot and you can, and there is no other person, Angelique--you must!” “This much, then. It is in a far, far away city, or town, or place, he lives. I know not, I. This much I know: he is good, a ver’ good man. And he have enemies. Yes. They have done him much harm. Some day, in many years, maybe, when you have grown a woman, old like me, he will come to Peace Island and forget. That is why we wait. That is why the master goes, once each summer, on the long, long trip. When Joseph comes, and the bad Pierre to stay. I, too, wait to see him, though I never have. And when he comes, we must be ver’ tender, me and you, for people who have been done wrong to, they--they--pouf! ’Twas anger I was that the master could put the evil-come into that room, yes.” “Angelique! Is that my father’s room? Is it? Is that why there are the very best things in it? And that wonderful picture? And the fresh suits and clothing? Is it?” Angelique slowly nodded. She had been amazed to find that Margot knew thus much of a long-withheld history, and saw no harm in adding these few facts. The real secret, the heart of the matter--that was not yet. Meanwhile, let the child accustom herself to the new ideas, and so be prepared for what she must certainly and further learn, should the master’s illness be a fatal one. “Oh, then, hear me. That room shall always now be mine to care for. I haven’t liked the housewifery, not at all. But if I have a father and I can do things for him--that alters everything. Oh! you can’t mean that it will be so long before he comes. You must have been jesting. If he knew Uncle was ill he would come at once, wouldn’t he? He would, I know.”