She had one little room, overlooking the garden, its furniture a bed for the mother and a cradle for the infant. It was sleeping.
She pulled a muslin curtain aside for him to see it.
"Oh, the sweet little angel!" exclaimed Pitou.
He knelt as it were to an angel, and kissed the tiny hand. He was speedily rewarded for his devotion for he felt Catherine's tresses on his head and her lips on his forehead. The mother was returning the caress given her son.
"Thank you, good Pitou," she said; "since the last kiss he had from his father, I alone have fondled the pet."
"Oh, Miss Catherine!" muttered Pitou, dazzled and thrilled by the kiss as by an electrical shock.
And yet it was purely what a mother's caress may contain of the holy and grateful.
Ten minutes afterwards, Catherine, little Isidore and Pitou were rolling in the doctor's carriage towards the hospital, where she handed the child to the peasant with as much or more trust as she would have had in a brother, and walked in at the door.
Dr. Gilbert was by his patient's side. Little change had taken place. Despite the beginning of fever, the face was still deadly pale from the great loss of blood and one eye and the left cheek were swelling.
Catherine dropped on her knees by the bedside, and said as she raised her hands to heaven,