She closed her eyes again as if recollecting something, and said:
"In Paris there is a place where one may leave a child without being obliged to tell one's name."
"And there?..."
She nodded, and leant wearily on the bed.
"But you must have been mad—now you can't recognize your child again."
"Oh yes," she replied, shaking her head violently, "I can recognize it again; each of the children receives a ring of thin metal round its wrists, and on the ring there is a number."
I was silent, and we went down because the bell had rung for supper. We both ate very little, and when the hymn was sung later, I heard nothing but the soft, melancholy note that trembled in the girl's voice. During the whole evening we said no more about the matter. I busied myself with packing up, and went to bed very late. For a long while, however, I could not go to sleep. Several times I sat up in my bed and glanced at my friend. She was lying quite still, and I believe she was asleep. At last my eyes closed too, and half awake and half asleep, I imagined that I saw a little girl who played in a dingy yard; she had the same large, bright eyes, and the same mass of auburn hair as my friend, only round its wrist there shone a small ring of metal, and on the ring a number was hanging.