Page:The Eyes of Innocence.djvu/127

Rh Have these two incidents anything to do with you? You must admit their seriousness to a mother."

Gilberte handed her the letter. Mme. de la Vaudraye read it and shrugged her shoulders:

"Are you so very rich?"

The girl gave her another letter, received that morning, in which the Dieppe solicitor furnished her with her quarterly statement. Mme. de la Vaudraye started:

"Impossible! Oh, my child, you must never let Guillaume know!"

"How can I? He has gone away!"

"And you sit there and say that so quietly! Doesn't his going distress you? Don't you love him?"

"Yes, I love him."

"Then write to him."

"Write to him?"

"Yes, tell him to come back ... tell him that his position makes no difference to you ..."