further away from Papa, raised a wall between them, the wall of things she knew and Papa must never know.
"Well, to be sure," said Papa, when she finished, "you certainly have had goings-on, for sure."
"Oh, Papa," went on Marise earnestly, "you will have Jeanne taken care of! It was when she was working for us, she got her paralysis. Don't you feel we ought to—for always, for always? It was for us.…"
"Oh, as to that," said Papa, "anybody of Jeanne's age, who rustles around as Jeanne does, is apt to get a stroke, whether she was working for us or not. It might have happened just as easily in her own home."
Marise's heart went down.
Papa added, with a change of tone, "I don't like her lying very well, but the old woman has been awfully good to you, Molly, awfully good, more like your grandmother than the cook, and I guess we'll see that she's taken care of, all right."
Marise squeezed his arm hard, and said nothing. After all, wall or no wall, Papa was there, good old Papa, so broad and solid, her very own Papa; somebody who, even if he didn't understand much of what went on, would look out for them all, Maman, Jeanne, herself.
IV
Papa went in at once to see Jeanne and told her through Marise—for Jeanne had never learned to understand his brand of French—that he would see that she was well taken care of till she recovered. Jeanne contrived with her one living hand and her eyes, to convey her respectful thanks, and to conceal everything else which Marise knew she must be thinking.
Then Papa wanted to go at once to the convent, and bring Maman home. What had he come back for, if not for that? As a matter of fact, Marise was not very sure why he had come back, or why she had felt it so necessary to get word to him at once. Now that she had had time to think about it, she realized that she dreaded very much having Maman see
