"Speak plain to me, madame," she said.
"Elise, I saw some one climb out of your bedroom window," was the slow reply.
"Oh, my God!" said the girl; "oh, my God!" and she stared blankly for a moment at Madame Chalice.

Then, trembling greatly, she reached to the table for a cup of water.
Madame Chalice was at once by her side.

"You are ill, poor girl," she said anxiously, and put her arm around her.
Elise drew away.
"I will tell you all, madame, all; and you must believe it, for, as God is my judge, it is the truth." Then she told the whole story, exactly as it happened, save mention of the kisses that Valmond had given her.
Her eyes now and again filled with tears, and she tried, in her poor untutored way, to set him right.

She spoke for him altogether, not for herself; and her listener saw that the bond which held the girl to the man might be proclaimed in the streets, with no dishonour.
"That's the story, and that's the truth," said Elise at last.

"He's a gentleman, a great man, and I'm a poor girl, and there can be nothing between us; but I'd die for him." She no longer resented Madame Chalice's solicitude: she was passive, and showed that she wished to be alone.
"You think there's going to be great trouble ?" she asked, as Madame Chalice made ready to go.
"I fear so, but we will do all we can to prevent it." Elise watched her go on towards the Manor in the declining sunlight, then turned heavily to her work again.
There came to her ears the sound of a dog-churn in the yard outside, and the dull roll and beat seemed to keep time to the aching pulses in her head, in all her body.