CHAPTER XXXV.
"FO' WAD YOU CRYNE ?" Clotilde, a step or two from home, dismissed her attendant, and as Aurora, with anxious haste, opened to her familiar knock, appeared before her pale and trembling.
"_Ah, ma fille_--" The overwrought girl dropped her head and wept without restraint upon her mother's neck.

She let herself be guided to a chair, and there, while Aurora nestled close to her side, yielded a few moments to reverie before she was called upon to speak.

Then Aurora first quietly took possession of her hands, and after another tender pause asked in English, which was equivalent to whispering: "Were you was, _cherie ?_" "'Sieur Frowenfel'-- " Aurora straightened up with angry astonishment and drew in her breath for an emphatic speech, but Clotilde, liberating her own hands, took Aurora's, and hurriedly said, turning still paler as she spoke: "'E godd his 'ead strigue! 'Tis all knog in be'ine! 'E come in blidding--" "In w'ere ?" cried Aurora.
"In 'is shob." "You was in dad shob of 'Sieur Frowenfel' ?" "I wend ad 'is shob to pay doze rend." "How--you wend ad 'is shob to pay--" Clotilde produced the bracelet.

The two looked at each other in silence for a moment, while Aurora took in without further explanation Clotilde's project and its failure.
"An' 'Sieur Frowenfel'-- dey kill 'im?
Ah! _Ma chere_, fo' wad you mague me to hass all dose question ?" Clotilde gave a brief account of the matter, omitting only her conversation with Frowenfeld.
"_Mais_, oo strigue 'im ?" demanded Aurora, impatiently.
"Addunno!" replied the other.

"Bud I does know 'e is hinnocen'!" A small scouting-party of tears reappeared on the edge of her eyes.
"Innocen' from wad ?" Aurora betrayed a twinkle of amusement.
"Hev'ryt'in', iv you pliz!" exclaimed Clotilde, with most uncalled-for warmth.
"An' you crah bic-ause 'e is nod guiltie ?" "Ah! foolish!" "Ah, non, my chile, I know fo' wad you cryne: 't is h-only de sighd of de blood." "Oh, sighd of blood!" Clotilde let a little nervous laugh escape through her dejection.
"Well, then,"-- Aurora's eyes twinkled like stars,--"id muz be bic-ause 'Sieur Frowenfel' bump 'is 'ead--ha, ha, ha!" "'Tis nod tru'!" cried Clotilde; but, instead of laughing, as Aurora had supposed she would, she sent a double flash of light from her eyes, crimsoned, and retorted, as the tears again sprang from their lurking-place, "You wand to mague ligue you don't kyah! But _I_ know! I know verrie well! You kyah fifty time' as mudge as me! I know you! I know you! I bin wadge you!" Aurora was quite dumb for a moment, and gazed at Clotilde, wondering what could have made her so unlike herself.