Five minutes later they knocked at the door of a small flat on the fifth floor. A nurse asked them in, and they found themselves in a sort of entrance-lobby which contained a folding bedstead. It was here that Giselle slept.
Mlle. Violette had already slipped into the next room to see the mother, who appeared to be a little better. She had had a fit, but, according to the nurse, the doctor had given them a few words of hope. Mdlle. Violette came back to say that they could see the invalid.
They entered a room which was quite tastefully furnished, and Giselle's mother welcomed them with a smile on her pale face. She expressed her gratitude to Didier for what he had done for her daughter and her self in words which brought tears to Françoise's eyes. And she said a few nice things about Françoise and her marriage which stirred the latter to the depths of her being.
"She went downstairs with the doctor. She probably wanted to go with him to learn the truth, the poor child. She fears that I am really ill, though we have done everything we can to hide the truth from her."
Françoise and Mlle. Violette assured her that the southern sun would do wonders for her, but that she must not live in rooms where its light never penetrated; and they made arrangements for Madame Anthenay, for such was the mother's name, to take up her abode in a small but comfortable flat on the Quay du Midi where she would be bathed in sunshine from the rising to the setting of the sun.
Suddenly they heard loud knocks on the landing door; and when it was opened Giselle flung herself into the room, her face convulsed and her frame shaken with a fit of sobbing.
"What's happened? . . . What's the matter?"
She endeavored to restrain herself, asking pardon of those whom she had not expected to see for giving way to such a silly exhibition of emotion.
"It's nothing. I've had a great fright in the street."
"That's not true," exclaimed Mlle. Violette. "I bet it's that man again. He has been following you."
"Well, yes, it is he. He has insulted me. He won't leave me alone."
Didier sprang from his chair, pale, and with a terrible lode on his face that frightened Françoise.
"Who has insulted you?" he demanded in a smothered voice.