Page:The Mystery of Madeline Le Blanc (1900).djvu/53

Rh at such a time, I am too old; and it would be no easy task to find him; Paris is no village."

"But it is only right that we should let our poor son know. It would kill him to think that she had been dead a long time before he knew it, for I know he thinks of her every hour," said the mother, bursting into tears.

"Don't weep; we will follow very soon," observed the father of the dead girl, his heart softening in this great affliction.."We will send some one to tell Joseph; but whom I do not know."

The mother sitting in the armchair mentioned several names. But there was some objection to ask or expect any one of them to go. The young men were already all in Paris; and there was an outbreak —nay, a revolution, expected any hour.

"Send me!" said Irène, suddenly stepping among them, her face aglow as she met the eyes of Joseph's and Madeline 's parents.

"You?" said the men, simultaneously.

"O Irène, you would be killed!" observed Joseph's mother.