I tried
her, instead, on another tack.
'Mademoiselle de Cocheforet does not seem very well to-day?' I
said.
'No?' she answered carelessly. 'Well, now you speak of it, I do
not think that she is. She is often anxious about--one we love.'
She uttered the last words with a little hesitation, and looked
at me quickly when she had spoken them. We were sitting at the
moment on a stone seat which had the wall of the house for a
back; and, fortunately, I was toying with the branch of a
creeping plant that hung over it, so that she could not see more
than the side of my face. For I knew that it altered. Over my
voice, however, I had more control, and I hastened to answer,
'Yes, I suppose so,' as innocently as possible.
'He is at Bosost, in Spain. You knew that, I conclude?' she
said, with a certain sharpness. And she looked me in the face
again very directly.
'Yes,' I answered, beginning to tremble.
'I suppose you have heard, too, that he--that he sometimes
crosses the border?' she continued in a low voice, but with a
certain ring of insistence in her tone. 'Or, if you have not
heard it, you guess it?'
I was in a quandary, and grew, in one second, hot all over.
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