"Yes, sister," began again Mlle. Fouchette. But she was almost afraid now. The aspect of her listener's face was enough to touch even a harder heart than possessed this not too tender bearer of ill news.
However, Madeleine would have heard nothing more. She gazed vacantly at the opposite wall, a knee between her hands, and swaying slightly to and fro. Her face, bloated with drink, had become almost pale, and was the picture of long-settled grief. It was as if she were in fresh mourning for the long ago.
Presently a solitary tear from the unseen and unseeing eye stole out of its dark retreat and rolled slowly and reluctantly down upon the cheek and stopped and dried there.
Mlle. Fouchette saw it as the weather observer sees the moisture on the glass and speculated on the character of the coming storm.
She was disappointed. For instead of an explosion Madeleine suddenly rose and began fumbling among the garments on the wall without a word. She selected the best from her humble wardrobe and laid the pieces out one by one on the bed, then began rapidly to divest herself of what she wore.
When interrogated by the wondering Fouchette she never replied. Indeed, she no longer appeared to notice that her visitor was there. She bathed her face, and washed her hands, and scrubbed her white teeth, and carefully rearranged her hair. All of this with a calmness and precision of a perfectly sober woman,—as she now undoubtedly was. She then resumed her hat.
"How!" exclaimed Mlle. Fouchette, noting this quiet preparation with growing astonishment,—"not going out?"
"Yes," replied the girl.
"But, dear, you have not yet given me the address."
"It is unnecessary."