Ah! the river!
For the first time it occurred to her now,—how many unbearable griefs the river had swallowed up.
There were so many things worse than death. One of these was to live as Madeleine had lived. Never that! Never! Not now,—once, perhaps; but not now. Oh, no; not now!
The river seemed to beckon to her,—to call upon her, reproachfully, to come back to it,—to open its slimy arms and invite her to the palpitating bosom that had soothed the sorrows of so many thousands of the children of civilization.
And Fouchette was the offspring of the river. Why had she been spared, then? Had it proved worth while?
She recalled every incident of that eventful period. She remembered the precise spot where she had been pulled out that gray morning, years before.
This idea had flitted through her mind, at first vaguely, then, still unsought, began to assume definite shape.
Eh, bien,—soit! From the river to the river!
Mlle. Fouchette, as we have seen, had all the spontaneity of her race, accentuated by a life of caprice and reckless abandon. To conceive was to execute. Consequences were an after-consideration, if at all worthy of such a thing as consideration.
She stopped. But this hesitation was not in the execution of her suddenly formed purpose. It was necessary to recover breath, and to decide whether to go by the way of the Rue Clovis, or to turn down by the steep of Rue de la Mont Ste. Geneviève to the Boulevard St. Germain.