"Madeleine! Madeleine! You have changed so completely! I cannot
believe that you'll never be the same Madeleine again. Why--you--you
look as if you were not there at all!"
"Only my shell is here. The real me is with him."
"Curse the man! Curse him! Curse him! I wish I'd blown out his
brains!" He threw his arms about wildly and she wondered if he would
strike her. But he threw himself into a chair and burst into heavy
sobbing. Madeleine ran out of the room.
XXXI
"I tell you it's true. You needn't pooh-pooh at me, Antoinette
McLane. I have it on the best authority."
"Old Ben Travers, I suppose!"
"No, it's not Ben Travers, although he'll find it out soon enough.
Her chambermaid knows my cook. She is devoted to Madeleine,
evidently, and cried after she had told it, but--well, I suppose it
was too good for any mere female to keep."
"Servants' gossip," replied Mrs. McLane witheringly. "I should think
it would be beneath your self-respect to listen to it. Fancy
gossiping with one's cook."
"I didn't," replied Mrs. Abbott with dignity. "She told my maid, and
if we didn't listen to our maids' gossip how much would we really
know about what goes on in this town?"
Mrs. McLane, Mrs. Ballinger, Guadalupe Hathaway and Sally Abbott
were sitting in Mrs.
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