"Did Madame Lemarque ever come to see her granddaughter?"
"Never. Léonie remained with us from year's end to year's end till after her eighteenth birthday, when, at Madame Lemarque's desire, we made arrangements for her travelling to Paris with other pupils who were returning to the great city."
"O yes, we had letters--very nicely-written letters--full of gratitude for what Madame Lemarque was pleased to call our kindness to Léonie. The child used to write to her grandmother monthly, while she was with us, and her letters were the best evidence that she was fairly used and happy."
"She was a sweet child," said Gudule, "and deserved every indulgence."
"Did she ever tell you anything about the shock which caused her illness?" asked Heathcote of the lay-sister.
"In her right senses never one syllable," answered Gudule. "I would not have questioned her upon that subject for worlds, for I believed that she had narrowly escaped madness. But during the six months in which I nursed her--for her health was completely broken, and it required all that time to build up her strength and calm her nerves--she used to sleep in a little bed close to mine, and in her troubled dreams I used to hear very strange things. How far the dreams were inspired by the recollections of real events, I cannot venture to say; but there were phrases that recurred so often--a horrible vision which so continually repeated itself, like a scene in a play--that I can but suppose it to have been the representation of some event which had really happened before the child's waking eyes."
"Can you recall the nature of that vision?" inquired Heathcote breathlessly.
It seemed to him that he was on the threshold of a new mystery--as terrible as the old one, and even darker: a tragedy hidden in the past, reflected only in a child's fever-dream.
"You should ask me if I can forget it, Monsieur," said Sister Gudule. "I wish with all my heart that I could. I have prayed many a prayer for oblivion. The poor child used to be feverish every night--a low fever, which only came on in the evening, but some nights were worse than others--and in her most feverish nights this dream seemed almost inevitable. I used to lie awake expecting it, dreading it."