but again, although Helene remembered arriving in Rouen with her mother, she must have been left for a time elsewhere, for Helene had another memory--of a convent, where she had tarried for what seemed a very long time to her childish mind.
Could she have been sent to a convent from the house in Rouen when she was so little that her memories of that first sojourn were confused?
And why?
The family had apparently been fond of "la petite Americaine," and even if her devoted mother had been obliged to leave her for several years it is doubtful if they would have sent so young a child to a convent.

Rack his memory as he would he could recall no allusion to such a journey, to any separation between mother and child after they were established in Rouen.
But he did remember one of Madame Delano's few references to the past, which might suggest that she had left the child somewhere while she went home to make peace with her family to get her bearings.

Her brother had not approved of her marrying an American.

"But," she had added graciously, "you see I had no such prejudice.

Neither now nor then.