When the agent had informed her of the death of Tartar she was first overcome with grief. The sense of her utter loneliness rushed upon her. She wept convulsively. Her sorrow was bitter and profound.
"Cheer up, my child; don't give way like that."
Her companion tried now and then to comfort her in his rough way.
"Ah, monsieur! but he was the only friend I had in the world!" she sobbed.
"There, there!" he said, soothingly; "you'll have more friends. You'll be taken care of all right."
"I don't care what becomes of me, now poor Tartar's gone! He loved me! Nobody will ever love me like he did,—never!"
But when she had recovered from this tempest of tears it was to succumb to a tempest of wrath.
"That wretch! I'll see him under the razor!" she exclaimed, meaning the guillotine. "He tried to drown me, the assassin! Yes, I know him for an assassin,—a murderer! It was he who pushed me into the river!"
"Oho!"
"It is true! That man is a fiend,—an assassin! I am ready to tell everything, monsieur! Everything!"