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 'What did you do?' Jill whispered.

'I held my mother. I called. There was no need to call. Everybody was running to us. Everybody had heard. The room at once was full of people. Joseph and his wife were there; and the old husband—crying—crying.—He took his wife away. He was tender to her; he is a good old man.—And the doctor and the police. They carried my mother to her room. I went with them. They always let me stay with her. They felt that I should be calm, and that they could trust me. From the first,' said Marthe Ludérac, and she put down her hands and turned her eyes on Jill, 'strength was given to me.'

Jill sat silent. The sense of awe, of distance, crept over her again. Her young, jocund face had a strained, strange look.

'I distress you too much,' said Marthe Ludérac, considering her gently. 'And now you have heard all my story.'

'No, no;—not all. I want to hear it to the end,' Jill said faintly, again putting her hand on Marthe Ludérac's. 'I want to hear how you and she lived here, when you brought her back. I want to hear what you did for all those years. You were not quite alone? You had Joseph. I did not know that Joseph was your servant.'

'Yes. He came from Buissac, with my mother, when she married. He has always been in my life, good Joseph. We could give them no money, but he and his wife, who was living then, followed us and took