Louise stood in the doorway waiting for ChÉrie, and watched her coming up the stairs rather slowly with fluttering breath. She drew her into the room and shut the door.

Mireille sat quietly in her usual armchair by the window, with her small face lifted to the sky.

"ChÉrie," said Louise, drawing the girl down beside her on the wide old divan on which the little Whitakers had sprawled to learn their lessons in years gone by. "I have something to say to you."

"I knew you had," exclaimed ChÉrie, flushing. "I knew it yesterday when I saw you. It is good news!"

Louise hesitated. "Yes ... for me," she said falteringly, "it is good news. For you, my dear little sister, for you ... unless you realize what has befallen us—it may be very terrible news."

ChÉrie looked at her with startled eyes. "What do you mean?" she asked under her breath.

Louise put her hand to her neck as if something were choking her. Her throat was dry; she could find neither words nor voice in which to give to the waiting girl her message of two-fold shame.

"ChÉrie ... my darling ... I must speak to you about that night ... your birthday-night——"

ChÉrie started back. "No!" she cried. "You said when we came here that we were to forget it—that it was a dream! Why—why should you speak of it again?"

"ChÉrie," said Louise in a low voice, "perhaps for you." ... She faltered, "for you it may have been a dream. But not for me."

The girl sat straight upright, tense and alert. "What do you mean, Louise?"

"I mean that for me that night has borne its evil fruit. ChÉrie! I thought of killing myself. But yesterday ... I spoke to Dr. Reynolds. He has promised to save me."

"To save you!" gasped ChÉrie. "Louise! Louise! Are you so ill?"

"My darling, my own dear child, I am worse than ill. But there is help for me; I shall be saved—saved from dishonour and despair." She lowered her voice. "ChÉrie!"—her voice fell so low that it could hardly be heard by the trembling girl beside her—"can you not understand? The shame I am called upon to face—the doom that awaits me—is maternity."

Maternity! Slowly, as if an unseen force uplifted her, ChÉrie had risen to her feet. Maternity!... The veil of the mystery was rent, the wonder was revealed! Maternity! That was the key to all her own strange and marvellous sensations, to the throb and the thrill within her! Maternity.

She stood motionless, amazed. A shaft of sunlight from the open window beat upon her, turning her hair to gold and her wide eyes to pools of wondering light. Such wonder and such light were about her that Louise gazed in awed silence at the ethereal figure, standing with pale hands extended and virginal face upturned.

She seemed to be listening.... To what voice? What annunciation did she harken to with those rapt eyes?

Louise called her by her name. But ChÉrie did not answer. Her lips were mute, her eyes were distant and unseeing. She heard no other voice but a child-voice asking from her the gift of life.

And to that voice her trembling spirit answered.