"It is she who will not sleep—"
"Poor soul, are her children with her?"
"No—and no women either. There is only the uncle."
"He is a good man, he will comfort her!"
"Faut prier le bon Dieu!"
At the court-room door there was a last glimpse of the stricken figure. She disappeared into the blackness of the night, bent and feeble, leaning with pitiful attempt at dignity on the uncle's arm. With the dawn she would learn her husband's fate. The jury would be out all night.
"You see, madame, it is she who must really suffer in the end." We were also walking into the night, through the bushes of the garden, to the dark of the streets. Our landlady was guiding us, and talking volubly. She was still under the influence of the past hour's excitement. Her voice trembled audibly, and she was walking with brisk strides through the dim streets.
"If Filon is condemned, what would happen to them?"
"Oh, he would pass a few years in prison—not many. The jury is always easy on the rich. But his future is ruined. They—the family—would have to go away. But even then, rumor would follow them. It travels far nowadays—it has a thousand legs, as they say here. Wherever they go they will be known. But Monsieur d'Alençon, what did you think of him, hein? There's a great man—what an orator! One must go as far as Paris—to the theatre; one must hear a great play—and even there, when does an actor make you weep as he did? Henri, he was superb. I tell you, superb! d'une éloquence!" And to her husband, when we reached the inn door, our vivacious landlady was still narrating the chief points of the speech as we crawled wearily up to our beds.
It was early the next morning when we descended into the inn dining-room. The lawyer's eloquence had interfered with our rest. Coffee and a bite of fresh air were best taken together, we agreed. Before the coffee came the news of the culprit's fate. Most of the inn establishment had been sent to court to learn the jury's verdict. Madame confessed to a sleepless night. The thought of that poor wife had haunted her pillow. She had deemed it best—but just to us all, in a word, to despatch Auguste—the one inn waiter, to hear the verdict. Tiens, there he was now, turning the street corner.