“No: he is well—in health; thank you kindly, Monsieur.”
“But his pay is not enough to help you, and of course he can get no work. Excuse me if I stopped you. It is because I owed Armand Monnier a little debt for work, and I am ashamed to say that it quite escaped my memory in these terrible events. Allow me, Madame, to pay it to you,” and he thrust his purse into her hand. “I think this contains about the sum I owed; if more or less, we will settle the difference later. Take care of yourself.”
He was turning away when the woman caught hold of him.
“Stay, Monsieur. May Heaven bless you!—but—but tell me what name I am to give to Armand. I can’t think of any one who owed him money. It must have been before that dreadful strike, the beginning of all our woes. Ah, if it were allowed to curse any one, I fear my last breath would not be a prayer.”
“You would curse the strike, or the master who did not forgive Armand’s share in it?”
“No, no,—the cruel man who talked him into it—into all that has changed the best workman, the kindest heart—the—the—” again her voice died in sobs.
“And who was that man?” asked De Mauleon, falteringly.
“His name was Lebeau. If you were a poor man, I should say ‘Shun him.’”
“I have heard of the name you mention; but if we mean the same person, Monnier cannot have met him lately. He has not been in Paris since the siege.”
“I suppose not, the coward! He ruined us—us who were so happy before; and then, as Armand says, cast us away as instruments he had done with. But—but if you do know him, and do see him again, tell him—tell him not to complete his wrong—not to bring murder on Armand’s soul. For Armand isn’t what he was—and has become, oh, so violent! I dare not take this money without saying who gave it. He would not take money as alms from an aristocrat. Hush! he beat me for taking money from the good Monsieur Raoul de Vandemar—my poor Armand beat me!”