By this name of "husband" she designated Fortuné de Chassagne, a ci-devant noble and officer in Bouillé's regiment. He had first loved her when she was a work-girl at a milliner's in the Rue des Lombards, and had carried her away with him to England, whither he had fled after the 10th August. He was her lover; but she thought it more becoming to speak of him as her husband before her mother. Indeed, she told herself that the hardships they had shared had surely united them in a wedlock consecrated by suffering.
More than once they had spent the night side by side on a bench in one of the London parks and gathered up scraps of broken bread under the table in the taverns in Piccadilly.
Her mother could find no answer and gazed at her mournfully.
"Don't you hear what I say, mother? Time presses, I must see Évariste at once; he, and he only, can save Fortuné's life."
"Julie," answered her mother at last, "it is better you should not speak to your brother."
"Why, what do you mean, mother?"
"I mean what I say, it is better you do not speak to your brother about Monsieur de Chassagne."
"But, mother, I must!"
"My child, Évariste can never forgive Monsieur de Chassagne for his treatment of you. You know how angrily he used to speak of him, what names he called him."
"Yes, he called him seducer," said Julie with a little hissing laugh, shrugging her shoulders.